(Per : HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE A.J. DESAI)
1. By way of the present Letters Patent Appeal under clause 15 of Letters Patent Appeal, the appellant-original petitioner has challenged the order dated 24.2.2011 passed by the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Application No.912 of 2011 by which the petition filed by the appellant challenging the orders passed by the respondent State in Revision Application as well as the order passed by the Collector, forfeiting the land in question by the State.
2. We have heard Mr.S.P.Majmudar, learned counsel appearing for the appellant and Mr.N.J.Shah, learned Assistant Government Pleader appearing for the respondents. We have gone through the orders passed by the authorities below. It is an admitted position that the land was allotted to the appellant in the year 1976 as new tenure restricted land for establishing ceramic industry on the said land. However, till today, the land is not used for the said purpose. The submission made by the learned counsel for the appellant that the appellant is now ready to use the said land for the said purpose is not acceptable since the Government granted the land to the appellant in the year 1976 and the appellant has not used the same till this date. The intention of the Government was to develop the area so that it would be beneficial to the society at large as ceramic bricks may be used in construction at much lower price.
3. We are in agreement with the observations made by the learned Single Judge in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the judgment, which are extracted below.
"6. Heard the learned advocate appearing on behalf of the respective parties at length. At the outset, it is required to be noted that as such there is a delay of approximately 8 years in challenging the order passed by the Secretary (Appeals), Revenue Department, State of Gujarat in Revision Application No. 17 of 2003 dtd.20/9/2003 / 10/10/2003. As such there is no explanation whatsoever about such a huge delay of about 8 years in challenging the said order. It appears that even the application for re-grant of the land in question was submitted before the Collector, Rajkot in the year 2008, which came to be rejected by the Collector vide order dtd.22/10/2009.
7. Even otherwise, on merits also the petitioner has no case. It appears that the land in question was granted to the petitioner for ceramic industry and the petitioner was required to make construction for ceramic industry, however, the petitioner failed to use the land for the purpose for which it was granted i.e. for ceramic industry and therefore, the land in question was forfeited to the State Government. It appears that again in the year 1983, the land in question was re-granted to the petitioner on payment of Rs.2 per sq.mtr., but the petitioner failed to pay the said purchase price and even subsequently also the petitioner failed to comply with the order passed by the Collector and did not make the payment. The petitioner neither paid the purchase price / occupancy price nor used the land in question for ceramic industry and for some time used the land for bricks manufacturing and did not put up any construction for ceramic industry and thereby not used the land for which it was granted. Considering the above, the Collector in the year 2003 again forfeited the land to the State Government, after giving an opportunity of being heard to the petitioner and the said order came to be confirmed by the revisional authority by judgement and order dtd. 20.09.2003 / 10.10.2003 passed in Revision Application No. 17 of 2003. Considering the above, it cannot be said that the Collector, Rajkot has committed an error and/or illegality in forfeiting the land in question to the State Government, which came to be confirmed by the revisional authority. Even the subsequent application submitted by the petitioner in the year 2008 for re-grant of the land is rightly rejected by the Collector on the ground that earlier the petitioner had failed to use the land for which it was granted and even failed to pay the purchase price despite number of demands. Considering the overall facts and circumstances of the case, present petition deserves to be dismissed and is accordingly dismissed."
4. In view of these facts, we do not find any infirmity in the order passed by the learned Single Judge. This Appeal is devoid of any merits and is accordingly dismissed.
(V.M.SAHAI,J) (A.J.DESAI,J) ***vcdarji Top