A second resumption application is barred where an earlier rejection attained finality.

The disputed land was granted to Baburi Naik temporarily in 1959 and confirmed in 1971 for two acres.

The land was subsequently transferred, and the petitioners purchased two acres from Puttamma in 1981.

In 1979–80, Thimma Naik, a son of the grantee, sought resumption of the land; the Assistant Commissioner rejected the application on 20 March 1984, and that order was not challenged.

Baburi Naik later initiated a second resumption proceeding in 1987.

The Assistant Commissioner allowed the claim, and the Deputy Commissioner confirmed it in part, directing resumption and restoration of one acre.

The petitioners challenged those orders insofar as they concerned that acre.

The Court applied the principle that a prior order rejecting a resumption claim, once it has attained finality, cannot be circumvented by initiating a second proceeding for the same relief.

It treated the 1984 rejection as binding on Baburi Naik, noting that he had signed the relevant order sheets.

No statutory provision or precedent was identified by the Court as the basis of its decision.

The Court found that the 1979–80 proceeding concerned resumption of the land and had been rejected, with no challenge brought against that decision.

Although the first application had been filed by Thimma Naik, the Court considered Baburi Naik bound by the rejection because the order sheets bore his signature.

It therefore held that Baburi Naik could not maintain a second resumption application in 1987, and that the authorities erred by allowing it as though it were the first proceeding.

It quashed the Assistant Commissioner’s order dated 26 August 2011 and the Deputy Commissioner’s order dated 16 March 2016 insofar as they ordered resumption and restoration of one acre, and directed the authorities to restore the petitioners’ name in the revenue records for the subject land.