Vishnu Kant Gupta v. The State Of Bihar & Ors.

Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 mentioned at Bar that the instructions received and the discussions 2 held were inadequate. Today, an affidavit has been filed on behalf of Chief Secretary which had been sworn and ready for filing on

06.12.2013 itself. This Court is sorry to note that authorities are not wholly cognizant of nor aware of the problem in issue. Champaran Sugar Mill appears to be a Company which was incorporated under the Companies Act, 1912. It had its registered office in the State of Uttar Pradesh and, as such, fell within the jurisdiction of Company Judge, Allahabad High Court. Bihar Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling Area and Acquisition of Surplus Land) Act, 1961 was enacted and, accordingly against the Company, which had sugar mills at Barachakia and Chanpatia in the district of East Champaran, agriculture land ceiling proceedings were taken up. It is unfortunate that though it is over fifty years since the Act was enacted, the agriculture land ceiling proceedings are yet to be finalized. It appears, as the matter of land ceiling was dragging, the Company was in need to sell certain lands. Permission having been refused by the authorities because of pendency of the ceiling proceedings, they approached this Court.

They gave an undertaking to this Court that the land, they proposed to sell, would be accounted for as a land allotted to them upon conclusion of ceiling proceedings. In other words, if in the Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 ceiling proceedings, they were allotted or held to be entitled to 3 certain lands, the lands sold by them would be deducted from that. Division Bench of this Court accepted the same which apparently was challenged in the Apex Court by the State. The Apex Court affirmed the order of the Division Bench of the High Court and, thus, permission was granted and that grant was affirmed by the Apex Court. Unfortunately, though the permission was granted, it could not be acted upon and Company did not make any sale of any land. The Company then went liquidation. Liquidation proceedings were taken up by the Company Judge, Allahabad High Court. Land, belonging to the Company, as per the land register maintained by the Company, was put to auction.

Petitioner agreed to purchase entire land and asset of the Company in liquidation appertaining to the Barachakia Sugar Unit. Some dispute arose with regard to valuation of land and asset. The matter traveled to the Apex Court. The Apex Court ultimately fixed the total value at about Rs 8.10 crores. Thus, the value for the transaction has been fixed by Court and has the seal of Apex Court. Pursuant to these sales, petitioner, upon deposit of various amounts, is being issued sale certificates by the official liquidator at Allahabad High Court. Problem now starts. These sale Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 certificates are then produced before the Registering Authority of 4 district of East Champaran for registration. The registering authority, on various pretexts, refuses to register. He starts doubting the valuation. He then finds himself unable to calculate the registration fee, stamp duty etc.

Any excuse would do. Court does not speculate the reason behind it. The matter travels to the District Collector, East Champaran. He sought directions from the Divisional Commissioner. Divisional Commissioner, in no uncertain terms, directs the Collector to permit registration. Question about valuation is raised. The matter is taken to the Inspector General (Registration) who quantifies the stamp duty/registration fee and directs the Collector to accordingly permit registration. All this is happening in the year, 2010 though Court sale was in 2008. Prima facie, in view of this Court, if these statutory and high functionaries were ordering the Collector, I really wonder what prevented the Collector from implementing the same. The fact of the matter is all efforts by the petitioner went down the drain because even till today, that is three years having gone by, he is yet to be favoured with registration even though he has been anxious to get the same done on payment of due fee.

The anxiety of the petitioner is that once he registers the land, as purchased by him, then he would be in a position not only Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 to sell some of them to meet financial obligations incurred for 5 setting up a new sugar mill but he would be in a position to transfer those lands to a corporate entity to be set up for establishing the new sugar mill. This whole business adventure of petitioner has already consumed five fruitless years. A counter affidavit was filed earlier by the State stating that all these matters were receiving the urgent attention of the Chief Secretary who had convened a meeting on 10.12.2010 and matters would be sorted out. It was under his active consideration. This Court reminded the State that we were three years thereafter and people should wake up from deep coma if we have to talk about industrialization. It is in those circumstances, the present affidavit has been filed by the Chief Secretary.

The only thing he says is that he has asked the Collector to finally dispose of the matters. Thus, we are back to square one inspite of persons, is, the Inspector General (Registration), Divisional Commissioner had already passed specific orders. Having considered the matter, in my view, not only the Collector has no difficulty in the matter, he is statutorily bound to act. The issues are virtually only two folds. Firstly, the implication of agriculture ceiling proceedings. In my view, that is wholly irrelevant in the present facts and circumstances, as noted Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 above. Supreme Court had already granted permission to the 6 Company to sell land which was to be adjusted against their entitlement as finally to be determined. That permission could not be acted upon. If anything, the same would apply to the present scenario as well. Thus, that cannot be a ground for withholding registration of the sale certificate granted by the High Court.

The next problem, if we can call that a problem, is what would be the registration fee and the stamp duty. If we have to find a problem in this State, it is everywhere. This issue was settled by Inspector General (Registration), who is the highest statutory authority in this regard, three years back but still the Collector has some problem. I will not speculate what that problem could be. There is no dispute with regard to the sale consideration because the sale price has been fixed by the Apex Court. The Court certificate mentions the consideration. It is not open to the Collector or the Registrar to take a different view of the matter upon any other consideration. Once that is fixed, the calculation of duties is mathematical and matter would not take more than a few seconds. Unfortunately, as in this State, it is taken more than three years again because the Collector, East Champaran chose to sleep over the matter to the detriment of industrialization and detriment of the petitioner.

Who benefited or Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 who was to be benefited or who would be benefited is anybody’s 7 guess? In such a situation, granting any further latitude to the Collector is totally uncalled for and would be unjustified. The attitude of the District Collector, East Champaran or for that matter, the Registrar, East Champaran is clearly a defiant attitude to defy the directions being given by the Inspector General (Registration) and the Divisional Commissioner. Here, I can only refer to the constitutional Bench judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Bhopal Sugar Industries Ltd –Versus- Income Tax Officer, Bhopal since reported in AIR 1961 Supreme Court 182 wherein as against the order of the Income Tax Officer, an appeal having been preferred to the Appellate Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal issued certain directions to the Income Tax Officer. The Income Tax Officer was not implementing those on the plea that the direction was not in consonance with law.

It is in those circumstances, the matter came before the Apex Court. Apex Court held that the High Court ought to have issued mandamus directing the Income Tax Officer to obey the directions issued by the Income Tax Tribunal. It was not open to the Income Tax Officer to question the correctness or otherwise of the order of the Tribunal nor could the High Court sit Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 down to examine the correctness thereof because it would be 8 destructive of the rule of law if directions given by the superior were not obeyed by the other authorities on whom the directions were binding. The Apex Court held thus: “Where Income-tax Officer had virtually refused to carry out the clear and unambiguous directions which a superior tribunal like the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, had given to him by its final order in exercise of its appellate powers in respect of an order of assessment made by him, such refusal is in effect a denial of justice, and is furthermore destructive of one of the basic principles in the administration of justice based as it is on the hierarchy of Courts.

In such a case a writ of issue ex debito mandamus justitiae to compel the Income-tax Officer to carry out the directions given to him by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. The High Court would be clearly in error if it refuses to issue a writ on the ground that no manifest injustice had resulted from the order of the Income-tax Officer in view of the error committed by the Tribunal itself in its order. Such a view is destructive of one of the basic principles of the administration of justice. … … …” should In such a situation, notwithstanding direction issued by the Chief Secretary to do the needful, I direct the Collector to take appropriate decisions in light of what has been discussed above within fifteen days from the date of production of a copy of Patna High Court CWJC No.8039 of 2013 (7) dt.18-12-2013 this order before him. I may note that it has taken almost five 9 years for the petitioner to get such a direction to fructify its purchases which were made by Court sale in the year, 2008. The matter requires no further delay. Let mandamus issue accordingly. The responsibility for timely compliance would be on the District Collector, East Champaran. With these observations and directions, the writ petition is allowed. M.E.H./-AFR (Navaniti Prasad Singh, J)