A recorded khatedar must receive notice before deletion of their revenue entry.

The appellant’s name was recorded as a joint khatedar in the revenue records for several lands in Jakkur Village.

After a separate writ petition concerning mutation of the properties was disposed of on the basis of a settlement between other parties, the Deputy Commissioner directed a change of khata.

The Tahsildar then deleted the appellant’s name by mutation order dated 28 June 2022, without notice to her.

The appellant challenged that direction and mutation order in a writ petition, which the Single Judge dismissed as not maintainable, directing her instead to seek review of the earlier writ order.

The Division Bench noted that the two writ petitions challenged different orders and arose from distinct causes of action; it also recorded that the appellant’s revenue entry remained in force when the impugned mutation was made.

1. Whether the appellant’s writ petition challenging the 2022 direction and mutation order was not maintainable because those actions followed an order in an earlier writ petition, requiring her to seek review of that order.

2. Whether the Tahsildar could delete the appellant’s existing revenue entry without serving her written notice under Section 129(2) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, read with Rule 65 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Rules, 1966.

Section 129(2) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 requires the prescribed officer, upon making an entry in the Register of Mutations, to give written intimation to persons appearing from the Record of Rights or Register of Mutations to be interested, as well as to other persons whom the officer has reason to believe are interested.

Rule 65 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Rules, 1966 provides for service of the prescribed mutation notice on those persons.

The court also considered Shivdev Singh v. State of Punjab, cited in the judgment as AIR 1963 SC 1909, concerning the High Court’s power to review an order under Article 226 at the instance of an affected non-party; it distinguished that principle because the earlier order expressly stated that the settlement would not bind other Class-I heirs.

The appellant’s challenge concerned a later Deputy Commissioner’s direction and Tahsildar’s mutation order, not the earlier order resolving the dispute between other parties.

The two proceedings therefore involved different orders and causes of action, and the appellant was not required to seek review of the earlier order as a precondition to challenging the later mutation.

Because the appellant’s name remained in the Record of Rights when the mutation was made, she was a person shown by those records to be interested in the mutation.

Section 129(2) and Rule 65 accordingly required written notice to her; the deletion without notice raised a distinct statutory and natural-justice issue for consideration.

It did not finally determine the merits of the challenge to the mutation order.