Settlement authorities under the OSS Act cannot question leases granted under the OGLS Act.

The petitioner’s land originated in a Government lease granted to Kasinath Naik in 1973.

After obtaining permission to transfer part of the land, the lessee sold it to Opposite Party No. 7, from whom the petitioner acquired the land through successive registered sale deeds

Following an inquiry, the Tahasildar held the original lease valid in 1995; that order was not challenged

During settlement operations, the Assistant Settlement Officer initially recorded the petitioner’s claim in the Yadast but ultimately recorded the land as Abadjogya Anabadi on the ground that it was not used for the purpose of allotment

The petitioner’s revision under Section 15(b) of the OSS Act was dismissed, principally because the revisional authority doubted the lease’s validity and the petitioner’s flow of title

The High Court heard this petition together with five petitions involving similar claims derived from another 1973 lease

Whether settlement or revisional authorities acting under the OSS Act may question the validity of a Government lease granted under the OGLS Act

Whether the revisional authority was justified in rejecting the petitioner’s claim on the grounds that the lease record and related documents had not been produced, despite the prior determination that the lease was valid

Under the OSS Act, settlement authorities may not assume the jurisdiction of authorities empowered under the OGLS Act or other applicable laws to determine the validity of a Government lease.

A lease cannot be treated as invalid unless it has been set aside or declared invalid by the competent authority under the applicable statute; settlement authorities must give effect to an existing lease and cannot cancel it indirectly through settlement proceedings.

The Court relied on Narottam Rath v. State of Odisha, 2023 SCC OnLine Ori 153, which affirmed this principle and relied on earlier decisions of the Orissa High Court.

The petitioner invoked the revisional jurisdiction under Section 15(b) of the OSS Act, while the related land transfers had been made with permission under Section 22 of the OLR Act.

The Court held that the revisional authority exceeded its jurisdiction by questioning the validity of a lease that had been upheld in the Tahasildar’s 1995 inquiry and had not subsequently been challenged before a competent forum.

The authority’s adverse inference from the petitioner’s failure to produce the original lease case record was unreasonable, particularly because the petitioner was not the original lessee and the record could have been called for from the authorities holding it.

The Court also found that the revisional authority’s conclusions concerning the absence of land-correlation details and the alleged need for further sanction were unsupported or speculative; its allegation of fraudulent land-grabbing lacked acceptable evidence.

These errors rendered the revisional order unsustainable.

In the lead petition, it set aside the orders in Objection Case No. 576/203 and OSS Case No. 709 of 2020, and directed the Tahasildar, Jatni, to cancel the finally published ROR in the State’s name and issue a fresh ROR in the petitioner’s name within two months of production of the certified order.

For the other five petitions, it set aside the challenged orders and directed the Tahasildar to issue fresh RORs in favour of the respective petitioners for their respective lands within the same period.