Revenue authorities must assess delay reasonably and cannot impute knowledge from unrelated proceedings.

The petitioners claimed title over land originally settled with Gulapdi Sheikh and subsequently transferred through registered sale deeds to the petitioners in 1985. Their names were not mutated in the records of rights, although they claimed to have paid land revenue.

In 2007, while taking steps for mutation, they discovered that the land had been auctioned for arrears of land revenue for the years 1986–87 to 1990–91; the auction sale was conducted on 14.11.1991 and confirmed on 04.04.1992.

The petitioners applied for cancellation of the auction before the Settlement Officer, but, receiving no action, approached the Assam Board of Revenue in 2007. The Board initially allowed the appeal on 18.04.2009, finding that the statutory notice requirements had not been complied with.

On challenge by the auction purchaser’s predecessor, this Court remanded the matter to the Board to first decide whether the delay could be condoned. Upon remand, the Board rejected the condonation application on 06.02.2014, relying principally on an order dated 23.03.1994 concerning an alleged application for annulment of sale. The petitioners challenged that order in the present writ petition.

1. Whether the Assam Board of Revenue acted lawfully in rejecting the petitioners’ application for condonation of delay by treating the proceedings and order dated 23.03.1994 as establishing the petitioners’ knowledge of the auction sale.

2. Whether the Board properly exercised its discretion while considering delay in proceedings invoking its revisional jurisdiction under Section 151 of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886.

3. Whether the Board’s order dated 06.02.2014 was sustainable when it failed to examine the petitioners’ specific allegation that the 1994 proceedings had been initiated by one Gunaruddin Sheikh, who was not shown as a recorded pattadar or as the appellant before the Board.

Section 81 of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886 permits an application to the Assam Board of Revenue to set aside a sale within one year after the sale becomes final, whereas Section 151 confers revisional jurisdiction on the Board without prescribing a specific period of limitation.

However, absence of a prescribed limitation under Section 151 does not authorise an authority to reopen proceedings after an unreasonable or unexplained delay; the authority must consider finality of proceedings and whether sufficient cause exists for the delay.

A statutory discretion to condone delay must be exercised reasonably, pragmatically and upon proper consideration of the relevant facts; failure to do so constitutes non-exercise or unreasonable exercise of discretion.

The Court also directed the Board to consider the Full Bench decision in Satyaranjan Paul Majumder v. Assam Board of Revenue, AIR 1977 Gau 83 (FB), concerning the scope of the Board’s revisional power under Section 151.

The High Court found that the Board’s conclusion regarding the petitioners’ knowledge of the auction sale was based on the order dated 23.03.1994, but the Board did not examine the petitioners’ specific contention that the relevant application had been filed by Gunaruddin Sheikh and not by them.

The record of rights did not disclose Gunaruddin Sheikh as a pattadar; instead, it reflected the names of the original owners and the petitioners’ predecessors-in-title.

Consequently, proceedings initiated by Gunaruddin Sheikh could not automatically be treated as proof that the petitioners themselves had knowledge of the auction sale in 1994.

Although delay and the need for finality were relevant considerations, the Board was required to exercise its discretion under Section 151 on the basis of the actual parties, records and explanations before it. Its failure to assess the material allegation and its reliance on an unrelated proceeding rendered the decision unreasonable and legally unsustainable.

The matter was remanded to the Board to reconsider afresh whether the delay in approaching it in 2007, concerning the 1991 auction and 1992 confirmation, should be condoned, while taking into account the unrestricted revisional jurisdiction under Section 151 and the decision in Satyaranjan Paul Majumder.

The parties were directed to appear before the Board on 14.09.2026; if the delay was condoned, the appeal was to be heard on merits.

No order as to costs was made.