Disputed questions of heirship cannot be adjudicated in writ proceedings.

Land measuring 2 acres 31 guntas in Sy. No. 51/P3, now Sy. No. 58, was granted to Amasamma in 1978 and sold under a registered sale deed in 2013.

Resumption proceedings commenced in 2019.

The Assistant Commissioner rejected the claim; on appeal, the Deputy Commissioner partly allowed it and ordered the land resumed to the Government, noting that Amasamma had died unmarried and without issue.

The petitioners, claiming to be Amasamma’s legal heirs, challenged the forfeiture order under Article 226 and sought restoration of the land.

Whether the Deputy Commissioner’s order resuming the land to the Government was liable to be quashed in the writ petition.

Whether the petitioners’ claim to be Amasamma’s legal representatives could be determined in writ proceedings.

Disputed questions of fact—here, whether the petitioners were the legal representatives of the original grantee—cannot appropriately be adjudicated in writ proceedings.

The petitioners invoked Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act to support their claim of succession, and relied on a decision referred to as “Satyan’s case”; however, the Court did not set out or apply the statute’s provisions or the precedent’s reasoning.

The Deputy Commissioner had ordered resumption on the basis that Amasamma died unmarried and without issue.

The petitioners’ entitlement depended on establishing that they were her legal representatives, a matter the Court treated as involving disputed facts unsuitable for determination in writ proceedings.

It found the Deputy Commissioner’s action justified and saw no ground to interfere, without finally determining the petitioners’ succession claim.

It left the parties at liberty to approach the appropriate forum, if advised and permissible in law; any interim order stood discharged, and pending interlocutory applications were disposed of.