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2025 DIGILAW 416 (ALL)

Mohan Lal v. State of U. P.

2025-03-03

J.J.MUNIR

body2025
JUDGMENT : J.J. MUNIR, J. 1. Heard Mr. Hanuman Deen Verma, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Sharad Chandra Singh, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of the State. 2. The petitioner filed an application seeking transfer of Revision No. 842, Mohan Lal and others v. Ashok Kumar and others, pending before the Deputy Director of Consolidation, Basti to the District Deputy Director of Consolidation or any other Deputy Director of Consolidation competent to decide. 3. The case of the petitioner is that he instituted the revision aggrieved by the order dated 23.01.2024 passed by the Settlement Officer of Consolidation in Appeal No. 484/534 by which condonation of delay in preferring the appeal to the extent of forty years was granted and the appeal registered. 4. The further case of the petitioner is that, though he had carried a revision to the Deputy Director of Consolidation on substantial ground, but the opposite party to the revision, in connivance with the Presiding Officer, got the case fixed for orders. Upon the petitioner fetching his Counsel, it transpired that the case had been reserved for orders. 5. It is also alleged that the Presiding Officer, upon being confronted with these proceedings by the petitioner's Counsel said that he may put in his written submissions or address orally but there was no time to hear him now. It is then said that upon the learned Counsel for the petitioner before the Revisional Court asking him for necessary fee to draft his written submissions which he had to arrange. In the evening hours, the applicant went to take care of his fields and passed-by the opposite party's home. The opposite parties' were talking amongst themselves that they had fixed matters with the Presiding Officer and got the case scheduled for orders. The petitioner, therefore, moved the present transfer application before the Deputy Director of Consolidation with a case that he lost heart upon the aforesaid developments and whatever he overheard. 6. It was further said by the petitioner that he had no expectation of receiving a fair hearing or an impartial judgment by the Deputy Director of Consolidation and prayed for a transfer. The application was heard by the District Deputy Director of Consolidation who remarked the first ground is that the Presiding Officer, in connivance with the other side, fixed the case for orders without hearing the petitioner. The application was heard by the District Deputy Director of Consolidation who remarked the first ground is that the Presiding Officer, in connivance with the other side, fixed the case for orders without hearing the petitioner. The other is about the petitioner overhearing the opposite party about an understanding with the Deputy Director of Consolidation that he would decide for the opposite party. The District Deputy Director of Consolidation has remarked that the concerned Presiding Officer never fixed the case for orders, as the records show. Rather, he had fixed it for final hearing. Therefore, the fact that the Deputy Director of Consolidation has scheduled the case for orders without hearing was incorrect. 7. About the other matter, which relates to the petitioner overhearing or, eavesdropping on the other side, the District Deputy Director of Consolidation has not believed it. He has called it hearsay. The District Deputy Director of Consolidation/Collector is wrong in calling what the petitioner alleges is hearsay. Hearsay is something which the persons saying before the Court had himself not heard. The petitioner asserted that he himself eavesdropped on the other side and overheard the other side say that he had fixed matters with the Presiding Officer. The allegations is, therefore, by no means hearsay. 8. The Collector ought be careful in choosing his words while seized of legal matters because obviously he is not trained in the law. But, the fact that the Collector has used a wrong word, does not detract from the worth of his findings. We entirely agree with the Collector that the allegations, which the petitioner has come up with, are absolutely bogus. They are nothing but conjectures; not simple, but wild. The first allegation, the Collector has rightly discarded, on the basis of record where the case was never fixed for orders without hearing Counsel for the petitioner, as he alleged. It is flawless. 9. So far as the other part of the order is concerned, the allegation is the byproduct of a common trend in contemporary society to misuse freedom of expression and the liberty of a citizen in a democratic society. No doubt, every citizen has all the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution but that does not entitle him to come up with irresponsible allegations against a Court, whether Legal or Lay. No doubt, every citizen has all the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution but that does not entitle him to come up with irresponsible allegations against a Court, whether Legal or Lay. A Court, possessed of jurisdiction in a matter, is discharging sovereign function of the State and litigants before the Court ought be respectful. Even if the litigant feels that the Court is not going his way, by remarks made open to conviction, it does not entitle the litigant to move a superior forum seeking transfer of proceedings. After all, the litigant's impression may be wrong. Even if it is right, the Court may genuinely be of opinion against a particular litigant's case, who has perceived what the Court remarked. If the Court decides one way and against the litigant, who thinks that the Court on a particular day was not with him, it is always open to the aggrieved litigant to challenge the orders that the Court ultimately makes, in appeal, revision or by 'invoking appellate procedures' as the expression goes. It is never open to a litigant to doubt the uprightness of the Presiding Officer merely on ground that some remark in Court was perceived by a litigant to be against his case. Even an adverse order, passed by the Court at an interlocutory stage, is not a ground for a litigant to come up with wild conjectures and conjure up allegations to make out a case for transfer. This trend has to be put down with a heavy hand because it is virtually subversive of the rule of law. This is a classical case of a litigant going overboard to seek transfer of his case on the most irresponsible and scurrilous allegations against the Presiding officer. 10. In the result, this petition fails and is dismissed with costs of Rs. 5,000/- recoverable from the petitioner.