Petitioner sought a direction to the respondent to recall of witness power to be invoked to meet the ends of justice for strong and valid reasons with cautions and circumspection, and the same issue was held in the judgement passed by a single bench judge Hon’ble Jayant Banerji, J..In the matter, Pratap Singh V/s State of U.P. and Others [WRIT – C No. – 53843 of 2010] dealt with an issue mentioned above.
The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that an ex-parte report of the Assistant Inspector General of Registration has been relied upon by respondent no.2 to record a finding regarding evasion of duty which could not have been relied upon by the authority in view of the judgment of this Court in the matter of and another Ram Khelawan alias Bachcha v. the State of U.P. It is further contended that the vendors of the sale-deed in question had sold their entire share of the land on the khasra numbers to the petitioner, and the admitted terms of the habendum clause appearing in the sale-deed reflect that the land in question was bhumi dhari over which agricultural activities were being carried on.
However, the matter of concern in the present petition is that despite relying upon the aforesaid exemplar deeds, respondent no.2 has proceeded to assess the value of the land in question on the basis of the minimum rates prescribed by the Collector. This could not have been done in view of the express provisions of Section 47-A(3) of the Act that is also relied on in the judgment of this Court in Ram Khelawan (supra) and several other decisions.
The court perused the facts and arguments presented in the case accordingly, the impugned order of respondent no.2 dated 31.12.2009, insofar as it assesses the valuation of the land in question on the basis of the minimum rates, is set aside. The order of the Additional Commissioner (Administration) dated 26.05.2010 is also set aside insofar as it affirms the order of respondent no.2 assessing the market value on the basis of the minimum rates.
Judgment reviewed by Sakshi Mishra
