Aunt’s Revenue Entries Restored After Karnataka HC Quashes Joint Mutation With Nieces, Citing Civil Court-Accepted Compromise With Buyer

The petitioner challenged two orders dated 3 September 2024 made by the Executive Officer, Srirangapatna Taluk Panchayat, directing joint revenue entries in her and her nieces’ names for four properties in Arakere Village.

The orders referred to an unregistered and unprobated will under which the properties were said to have been bequeathed to the petitioner’s brother, and to transfers of the properties by the brother and a subsequent purchaser.

In a partition suit, the petitioner, her nieces and the purchasers were parties; the petitioner and the final purchaser reached a compromise, which the Civil Court accepted under Order XXIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, resulting in the properties being deleted from the plaint.

The petitioner had previously been entered in the revenue records in 2016, but those entries were set aside by the impugned orders.

The petitions were brought under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, and the compromise in the partition suit was accepted under Order XXIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The Court applied the principle that, in the circumstances before it, the revenue authority could not displace the existing entries and direct joint entries on the stated grounds when the Civil Court had accepted the compromise concerning the properties and that order had not been challenged.

The Court considered the accepted compromise, made in the context of the transfers to the purchasers, and the resulting deletion of the properties from the partition suit.

Because the Civil Court’s order had not been challenged, those circumstances weighed against the Executive Officer’s decision to cancel the petitioner’s revenue entries.

The Court also held that the Executive Officer could not assume jurisdiction to order joint entries merely because the petitioner and her nieces had not signed the compromise or stated their views on the will.

It directed the authorities, if the revenue entries were not in the petitioner’s name, to reinstate them within four weeks of receiving a certified copy of the order; the petitioner was granted liberty to file that copy with the Executive Officer within four weeks of receiving it.