Orissa High Court
Niranjan Nanda vs Opp. Parties on 7 April, 2025
Bench: S.K. Sahoo, Chittaranjan Dash
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
W.P.(C) No.30952 of 2024
Niranjan Nanda .... Petitioner
Mr.Nirmal Chandra Mohanty,
Advocate
-versus-
.... Opp. Parties
State of Odisha and others
Mr.Satyabrata Mohanty,
Addl. Government Advocate
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE S.K. SAHOO
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE CHITTARANJAN DASH
ORDER
Order No. 07.04.2025
03. This matter is taken up through Hybrid arrangement
(video conferencing/physical mode).
The petitioner Niranjan Nanda has filed this writ
petition challenging the order dated 15.07.2013 passed by the
Assistant Settlement Officer, Rental Colony, Bhubaneswar,
opposite party no.2 in Rent Case No.10226 of 2013 under
Annexure-7, in which the ASO has held that no party had filed
documents to prove that the lease case in respect of the suit
plot had been scrutinized and therefore, the ASO thought it
proper not to record the Government land in favour of the
private individual with further observation that the affected
parties are having scope to appeal before the Appellate
Authority to prove the genuineness of their claims.
Relief has been sought for by the petitioner basing on
the common judgment dated 02.01.2023 passed by the
Division Bench of this Court in the case of Narottam Rath -Vrs.
State of Odisha and another in W.P.(C) No. 1608 of 2014 and
the connected writ petitions.
It appears that the State of Odisha challenged the
judgment dated 02.01.20213 in the Hon'ble Supreme Court.
In the Case of State of Odisha and others -Vrs.-
Deepak Kumar Samantaray in Special Leave Petition (C)
No. 26551 of 2023 and batch of cases, which were disposed of
on 17.12.2024, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that whether
the power exercised by the ASO under the provisions of
Section 12 of the Orissa Survey and Settlement Act, 1958
were exercised prior to the finalization of the Record of Rights
or at a subsequent stage was not considered by the High
Court and whether the aggrieved parties had exhausted their
remedies as provided under Section 12A and/or Section 15B
of the said Act was not considered by the High Court and the
High Court proceeded on the assumption that all the
petitioners before the Court had leases in their favour in
relation to which no Record of Right was required to be
prepared in terms of Section 12 of the said Act. Accordingly,
the judgments passed in all those cases by this Court were set
aside and the matters were remanded to this Court for
consideration afresh and it was specifically ordered that each
case would be considered and decided separately.
Learned counsel for the petitioner fairly submits that
against the impugned order dated 15.07.2013, the petitioner
ought to have approached the revisional authority under
section 15(b) of the Orissa Survey and Settlement Act, 1958,
but he has not done so.
In view of such submission made by the learned
counsel for the petitioner and keeping in view the order dated
17.02.2024 passed in Special Leave Petition (C) No. 26551 of
2023 and batch of cases, this writ petition is disposed of
granting liberty to the petitioner to approach the revisional
authority in accordance with law.
( S.K. Sahoo)
Judge
(Chittaranjan Dash)
Judge
PKSahoo
Location: HIGH COURT OF ORISSA
