A Collector Cannot Declare a Purchaser Non-Agriculturist After Withdrawing Section 54/75 Proceedings.

The petitioner purchased land bearing Survey No. 258/2, Village Chhaya, by two registered sale deeds. Mutation entries Nos. 5546 and 5547 were certified on 10 February 1995, and the land was subsequently granted non-agricultural use permission under Section 65 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879.

In 2009, the Collector initiated RTS proceedings and cancelled the entries for an alleged breach of Section 54 of the Saurashtra Gharkhed, Tenancy Settlement and Agricultural Lands Ordinance, 1949. The SSRD set aside that order and directed proceedings under Sections 54 and 75 of the Ordinance. The Collector later dropped those proceedings and confirmed the entries, but also held that the petitioner was not an agriculturist.

The petitioner challenged that finding, contending that it was beyond the Collector’s jurisdiction and had been made without a hearing.

Whether the Collector, while deciding proceedings under Sections 54 and 75 of the Ordinance and ultimately dropping them, had jurisdiction to hold that the petitioner was not an agriculturist.

Whether the Collector’s finding that the petitioner was not an agriculturist was sustainable when it was made without a hearing and without identifying the material supporting it.

Section 54 of the Saurashtra Gharkhed Ordinance restricts specified transfers of agricultural land to non-agriculturists, subject to the permission contemplated by that provision; Section 75 empowers the Collector to summarily evict a person unauthorisedly occupying or wrongfully possessing land in circumstances covered by the Ordinance.

Revenue authorities exercising suo motu powers must act within a reasonable time and explain inordinate delay.

The Court relied on Evergreen Apartment v. Special Secretary, 1991 (1) GLR 113, Jhaverbhai Savjibhai Patel v. Kanchaben Nathubhai Patel, 2005 (3) GLR 2233, and Natwarlal Mohanlal Dutta v. State of Gujarat to reaffirm that the validity of a transaction or a party’s status under a particular enactment must be determined by the competent authority through the prescribed procedure and after giving affected parties an opportunity of hearing; mutation proceedings are not the forum for determining the validity of a sale transaction.

The Collector had withdrawn the notice and dropped the Sections 54 and 75 proceedings because the land had already been converted to non-agricultural use, and the order granting that conversion remained unchallenged.

In that setting, the Collector had no authority in those proceedings to make a separate determination that the petitioner was not an agriculturist. The finding was also unsupported by stated reasons or identified evidence and was made without giving the petitioner an opportunity to be heard.

The Court further observed that the earlier exercise of suo motu revenue powers had been initiated after substantial delay and reiterated that transaction validity and related status questions must be decided through the competent statutory process, not as an incidental determination in revenue proceedings.

The remainder of the Collector’s order was upheld; there was no order as to costs, and the Rule was made absolute.