9911796707
TMI Blog1995 (1) TMI 404X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lled as 'the Act', or before the High Court under Section 8C of the Act. The appellants herein filed an application O.A. No. 851 of 1974, before the Forest Tribunal, Palghat, claiming exemption/exclusion for an extent of 7.22 acres of land situated in Nochipully, Palghat taluk and District, from vesting in the Government under the said Act. The Forest Tribunal passed an order dated 28th May, 1977 upholding the claim and allowed that application. The respondents herein filed a review petition, LA. No. 370 of 1987, under Section 8B of the Act. The Tribunal allowed the review petition and set aside the order passed in O.A. No. 851 of 1974 holding that the appellants are not entitled to the claim made by them. 2. As against the order ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hree conditions are satisfied, and Tribunal cannot go beyond these conditions and find out any other defect in the order for the purpose of reviewing its own judgment. Applying this principle the order impugned does not satisfy any of the conditions to review. According to the learned Counsel none of the grounds set out in the application has been made out to warrant the applicability of Section 8B of the Act. According to him the Tribunal is wrong in taking note of the data collected long after the date of the disposal of O.A. and it will amount to supplying the data failed to be produced before the. Custodian. According to the learned Counsel, the findings of the Tribunal that the disputed land is part of a private forest are not based on ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... led by reason of the delay in applying for and obtaining a certified copy. Under Section 8B(3) of the Act, on receipt of an application under subsection (1) of Section 8B the Tribunal shall review decision and pass such orders as it may think fit. On a plain reading of the Section that the satisfaction of any one of the three grounds has to be established as a condition precedent for the Custodian to make an application for review. But the provision does not say that the same or similar grounds must be in existence for the purpose of the Tribunal to satisfy itself before reviewing the order. To restrict the power of the review only to such of those three grounds for which the Custodian has to be satisfied will be restricting the scope of th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... as been upheld by a Division Bench of this Court in Govindan Thirumulpad v. State of Kerala 1988 (1) KLT 865 in which one of us was a party. According to the said decision, conferment of such drastic powers seems to us to be fully justified by the recitals contained in the preamble, which discloses a sordid state of affairs in the conduct of cases dealing with private forests. The Division Bench has also upheld competency of State Legislature to pass such an order. Before the said Division Bench one of the contentions was that the grounds mentioned for justifying the application for review by State or the Custodian amount to con ferment of additional and under serving privileges on one of the litigants, in addition to and in supersession of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ent reasons are shown to exist. But if sufficient grounds are made out, it does not preclude this Court from reviewing the entire evidence. We are of the opinion that Order 47, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure is not and was not meant to be exhaustive. The Rule itself left room for the Court to interfere if other sufficient reason was made out. That elbow room seem to us to have been further enlarged. This seems to be the position in view of the specific provisions contained in Section 8C(5). That was the view taken by another Division Bench of this Court in the decision in R.P. No. 166 of 1984 in M.F.A. No. 358 of 1980. 7. The above decisions strengthen our view that the power of review under Section 8B(3) of the Act is not restr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the disputed property there is a shrub jungle. Commissioner has further stated that on the four sides of the disputed property it is vested forest. Based on that view the Tribunal found that the disputed property is part of a private forest. The Tribunal further found that the applicant is not entitled to the benefit of Section 3(3) of the Act since he has not proved his title and that he was not in personal cultivation of the property on the appointed day. On the facts and circumstances of the case the Tribunal has come to the conclusion that the applicant is not entitled to the benefit of Section 3(2) of the Act also. The appellant was given sufficient opportunity while considering the review petition. In the result the O.A. was dismisse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
