Patna Hc Criticises Autocratic Action Of State On Decades Old Land Ownership

The Patna High Court has criticised the ‘autocratical action’ and “open defiance” of judicial pronouncements in a case involving land ownership having longstanding mutation in Jamui district.

The petitioner, Krishna Kumar Goenka, was aggrieved by the fact that the rent receipts for the land, which were being issued to the petitioner for the last 60 years, were stopped all of a sudden.

The petitioner contended that the state designed this disruptive approach to bypass previous High Court orders.

In the earlier rulings concerning the petitioner’s brothers, the Court explicitly ruled that a longstanding jamabandi (land possession record) cannot be canceled through summary executive proceedings, and that the state’s only recourse is to approach a competent Civil Court.

Still, the local revenue officials initiated a formal cancellation case against the petitioner’s land record while his writ application was actively pending before the HC.

Hearing his civil writ petition, a single-judge bench of Justice Sourendra Pandey ordered the local administration to immediately resume issuing rent receipts to the petitioner.

“This is yet another case that the State has acted in a very autocratical manner, where they have shown defiance not only to the orders of this Court but have also bypassed the various judicial pronouncements where it has been very categorically held that a longstanding jamabandi cannot be cancelled in summary proceedings and the only option the State has is to file a civil suit “ the bench observed on June 18.

The court declared the initiation of Cancellation Case No. 39 of 2023 by the Additional Collector “legally unsustainable and bad”.

Allowing the writ application, the Court strictly directed the Circle Officer of Khaira, Jamui, to start issuing rent receipts to the petitioner with immediate effect. Justice Pandey warned that any future administrative action outside a competent Civil Court would be treated as contemptuous.

“In the present matter the has observed that during the pendency of the writ application the recommendation for cancellation was given and the additional collector has gone on to institute a case for cancellation,” the bench added.

Arun Kumar is Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times. He has spent two-and-half decades covering Bihar, including politics, educational and social issues.