1 IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION APPELLATE SIDE Present: The Hon’ble Justice Ananya Bandyopadhyay W.P.A. 16970 of 2024 Balaram Roy & Ors. -Vs- The State of West Bengal & Ors. For the Petitioners : Mr. Asfak Ahammed For the Respondent Nos.8 : Mr. Swapan Banerjee Mr. Diptendu Narayan Banerjee For the Respondent Nos. 10 to 11 : Mr. Probal Mukherjee, Sr. Adv., Mr. Avishek Prosad Judgment on : 07.09.2026 Ananya Bandyopadhyay, J.:- 1. The writ petition concerns LR Plot Nos.479 and 483 of Mouza Dakshin Bhatra, J.L. No. 114, Police Station Malda, District Malda. The petitioners claim that the said plots have been settled in their favour by grant of pattas in the year 2003 pursuant to Patta Case No.48/XII/R/2002-2003. Their immediate grievance arises from seizure of paddy cultivated upon the disputed land on 29th November 2023 and 10th May 2024 and from the apprehended obstruction to their cultivation. 2. The pleadings, however, reveal that the controversy between the parties extends beyond the two incidents of seizure. The petitioners assert that their predecessors cultivated the land for several decades and that, upon completion of the requisite proceedings before the revenue authorities, pattas came to be granted in their favour in 2003. Respondent nos.10 and 11 dispute such entitlement and challenge 2 the legal efficacy of the pattas. Their claim is sought to be traced to earlier revenue proceedings concerning the same land and to the entries appearing in the record of rights. 3. The petitioners contend that the pattas constitute a lawful settlement by the State and that their possession and cultivation followed such settlement. They further contend that the police, acting upon complaints at the instance of respondent nos.10 and 11, interfered with such cultivation and seized the agricultural produce raised by them. 4. Respondent nos.10 and 11, on the other hand, question the authority of the State to have settled the disputed land in favour of the petitioners and refer to proceedings commencing in 1970, proceedings before this Court in 1991 and subsequent developments in the revenue records. Their contention is that the pattas relied upon by the petitioners cannot be examined as isolated instruments without reference to the proceedings which preceded and followed their issuance. 5. The report of the Block Land and Land Reforms Officer, Old Malda, records that LR Plot No.479, together with other plots in Mouza Dakshin Bhatra, was the subject matter of Case No.36 of 1970 under Section 44(2a) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953. 6. An order dated 8 September 1970 was passed in the said proceeding. The order was challenged in statutory appeal by the persons affected. The appeal, being E.A. Appeal No.98 of 1970 under Section 44(3) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, culminated in an order dated 28th March 1977 whereby the order dated 8 September 1970 was set aside. 7. The statutory scheme assumes significance. Section 44(2a) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act enables revision of an entry in a finally published record of rights in the circumstances contemplated by the provision, after affording the 3 persons interested an opportunity of hearing and upon recording reasons. Section 44(3) provides the appellate remedy against an order passed under Section 44(2a). 8. The order dated 08th September 1970, having been set aside in exercise of the statutory appellate jurisdiction, cannot now be treated as an operative adjudication conclusively establishing vesting of the disputed land in the State. The consequence of the appellate order, however, cannot be extended to an adjudication which the order itself does not contain. 9. The order dated 28th March 1977 does not, by its mere existence, declare respondent nos.10 and 11 to be the absolute owners of the disputed land. Equally, it does not determine the validity of the pattas which, according to the petitioners, came to be issued in 2003. The legal effect of the appellate order has thus to be confined to what was actually decided therein. 10. The distinction assumes significance because the rival parties seek to derive substantive rights from events occurring at different points of time. The petitioners rely upon the pattas of 2003 and the possession and cultivation claimed thereafter. Respondent nos.10 and 11 rely upon the earlier proceedings and contend that the State could not have subsequently settled the land in favour of the petitioners in the manner asserted by them. 11. The materials placed before the Court disclose proceedings before this Court in the year 1991. In C.O. No.4447(W) of 1991, Smt. Dhaneswari Choudhury v. State of West Bengal & Ors., an order dated 14th January 1991 directed the State respondents to settle the subject land, including other lands of Mouza Dakshin Bhatra, if such land had not already been settled, until further orders. 12. Proceedings alleging disobedience of the said order were thereafter instituted in CR 14127(W) of 1993. The materials relied upon by respondent nos.10 and 11 refer to an affidavit filed by the District Land and Land Reforms Officer in the said 4 proceedings, stating that certain pattas issued in 1991 had been recalled or cancelled. 13. The petitioners do not accept the consequence sought to be drawn from the said proceedings. They rely upon the subsequent Patta Case No.48/XII/R/2002-2003 and contend that the pattas issued in 2003 followed a separate revenue process and confer upon them the right to cultivate the land. 14. The significance of these competing assertions is not confined to the genuineness of any individual document. The authority under which the pattas were issued, the revenue proceedings pursuant to which they were granted, the status of the land at the relevant point of time, the effect of the earlier proceedings before this Court and the legal consequence of the order dated 28th March 1977 constitute interconnected questions. 15. The present writ proceeding does not contain the evidentiary framework necessary for determining those questions conclusively. The Court is confronted with rival factual assertions and documents whose legal effect is itself disputed. A determination in favour of either side would necessarily involve an adjudication upon matters which extend beyond the legality of any particular administrative act presently impugned. 16. The report of the Block Land and Land Reforms Officer contains another circumstance of relevance. Respondent nos.10 and 11 submitted an application dated 11th July 2022 seeking correction of the Record of Rights. The report records that the disputed plot presently stands recorded in LR Khatian No.1 and that the Block Land and Land Reforms Officer did not possess the authority to effect the correction sought. 5 17. The report further records that the matter was placed before the superior revenue authorities by communications dated 02nd August 2022 and 12th June 2023 and that no instruction had been received by the date of the report. 18. The revenue record, therefore, does not furnish a final adjudication of the rival claims. The pendency of an application for correction does not confer title upon the applicant. The existing entry, for the same reason, cannot be treated as an adjudication extinguishing a right which may otherwise be established in accordance with law. 19. Sections 50 and 51 of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 operate within the statutory scheme governing maintenance and updating the Record of Rights as well as revision of preparation of Record of Rights respectively. The Act further provides machinery for correction and revision of entries. The statutory scheme requires the revenue authority to determine matters falling within the jurisdiction entrusted to it by the Act. 20. Section 51C of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act 1955 has a distinct operation. It places restrictions upon the jurisdiction of the civil court in matters concerning revenue or incidents of tenancy and, in the circumstances specified therein, upon proceedings seeking alteration of entries in the record of rights. The provision cannot, however, be read as conferring upon a writ court an unrestricted jurisdiction to determine disputed title merely because the controversy is reflected in a revenue entry. 21. A revenue record performs a statutory and fiscal function. An entry therein may constitute relevant evidence in an appropriate proceeding, but the entry itself does not amount to a declaration of title. The question concerning correctness of an entry and the question concerning the substantive right in the land are capable of arising in different legal settings and cannot be treated as interchangeable. 6 22. The present controversy illustrates that distinction. The petitioners seek to derive their right to cultivate from the pattas of 2003. Respondent nos.10 and 11 dispute the legal efficacy of those pattas. The Court would consequently have to examine not merely the present revenue entry but also the proceedings which culminated in the pattas, the earlier proceedings concerning the land and the rival claims to possession. 23. Article 226 of the Constitution of India confers a wide jurisdiction for correction of errors in exercising public law. The exercise of such jurisdiction, however, does not dispense with the necessity of determining whether the relief sought can be granted without adjudicating disputed private rights. The Court cannot, under the guise of granting police protection, recognise one of two rival claimants as the person entitled to possess and cultivate the land when the entitlement to such possession is the subject of controversy. 24. The prayer for police protection has consequently to be considered with reference to the nature of the right asserted. The petitioners do not seek protection of an admitted or judicially determined possession. They seek protection upon the premise that the pattas confer upon them the exclusive right to cultivate the disputed plots which premise has been specifically disputed. 25. A direction to the police to protect such cultivation shall therefore have an effect extending beyond prevention of unlawful interference. It will, in practical terms, require the police to recognise the petitioners’ possession and to exclude the competing claim of respondent nos.10 and 11. Such a consequence cannot follow from a writ of mandamus when the right sought to be protected has itself not been adjudicated. 26. The police report records that on 29th November 2023 the police received information concerning an altercation between the rival groups relating to 7 approximately 800 kilograms of harvested paddy lying upon the disputed land. According to the report, both groups claimed ownership of the crop. The police seized the paddy and placed it on zimma. 27. The report further records that on 10th May 2024 another altercation occurred concerning harvested paddy, stated therein to weigh approximately 680 kilograms. The crop was again seized and placed on zimma. 28. The petitioners disputed this account and asserted the paddy had been cultivated by them at their own cost and through their own labour and that the police seized the crop without giving proper consideration to the pattas produced by them. They also alleged that the police acted upon the influence of respondent nos.10 and 11. 29. The police report records a different factual account and refers to seizure lists and zimmanamas bearing the signatures of persons representing both sides. It further recorded that the paddy had already been harvested and was lying in the field when the police reached the place of occurrence. 30. The Court does not consider it appropriate to resolve this factual conflict in the present writ proceeding. The question whether the seizure has been made in the circumstances stated in the police report or in the circumstances alleged by the petitioners requires examination of the contemporaneous records and the materials bearing upon the criminal process. 31. There is a further independent impediment to the prayer for return of the seized paddy. Once the crop has been seized by the police in connection with an occurrence attracting the criminal process, its custody, release and delivery fall within the procedural jurisdiction of the competent criminal court in accordance with the provisions governing seized property. 32. The writ court cannot ordinarily be invited to constitute a parallel forum for securing delivery of property seized by the police, particularly where the entitlement 8 to the property is itself disputed. The circumstance is of particular significance herein because the petitioners’ claim to the paddy is derivative of their asserted right to cultivate the disputed land which itself is contested by respondent nos.10 and 11. 33. A direction for return of the crop will consequently require the Court to examine two separate questions: whether the seizure has been justified in the circumstances in which it has been effected and whether the petitioners, as against the rival claimants, are entitled to possession of the seized crop. The latter question cannot be separated from the controversy concerning possession and cultivation of the land. 34. Such an adjudication cannot appropriately be undertaken in the present writ proceeding so as to supplant the procedural jurisdiction of the competent criminal court. The refusal to grant the prayer for return of the paddy does not amount to an endorsement of the police version, nor does it constitute a declaration that the petitioners have no claim to the crop. 35. The allegation of political influence also cannot, in the absence of supporting material of sufficient probative value, furnish the basis for a judicial finding of mala fide exercise of police power. The fact that respondent no.11 is described as politically influential does not indubitably establish that the police acted for an extraneous purpose. 36. The petitioners place reliance upon their asserted continuous cultivation and payment of revenue. Such circumstances may constitute relevant evidence before a forum competent to adjudicate the rights of the parties. They cannot, however, by themselves, resolve the dispute concerning the legal effect of the pattas or the competing claim to possession. 9 37. The Court, therefore, refrains from pronouncing upon the validity, subsistence or legal effect of the pattas relied upon by the petitioners. It would be inappropriate to declare, upon the present materials, that respondent nos.10 and 11 possess an established title to the disputed plots. 38. The Court also finds no occasion to determine whether the land has been the subject for settlement by the State, whether the settlement in favour of the petitioners has been preceded by all requisite proceedings, or whether any earlier settlement has been recalled or cancelled in a manner affecting the subsequent pattas. These questions require examination of the original records and cannot be conclusively answered upon the affidavits presently before the Court. 39. The presence of the State authorities as respondents does not alter the essential character of the controversy. The public law jurisdiction of this Court cannot become a means for obtaining, through a direction to the police or revenue authorities, a declaration of title or possession which the Court has not otherwise adjudicated. 40. The Court is conscious of the petitioners’ assertion that the disputed land constitutes their source of livelihood. Though such circumstance evokes due consideration, but cannot justify the legal basis for granting a relief which necessarily rests upon an unresolved determination of competing rights. 41. The appropriate course is consequently to leave the substantive rights of the parties open. The revenue authorities may deal with the pending application concerning the record of rights in accordance with law and upon consideration of the relevant records. The parties shall remain at liberty to pursue such other remedies as may be available to them in law for determination of their respective rights. 42. Nothing contained in this order shall be construed as a declaration of title, possession or cultivation in favour of either party. The police authorities shall 10 remain at liberty to take such measures as the law permits for prevention of breach of peace and maintenance of public order, without recognising either of the claimants as entitled to exclusive possession of the disputed plots. 43. For the reasons aforesaid, the reliefs claimed in the writ petition cannot be granted. The controversy concerning the land, the pattas, the revenue entries, possession and the seized crop requires adjudication in the appropriate statutory or judicial forum and cannot satisfactorily be resolved within the present proceeding upon the materials placed before this Court. 44. Accordingly, WPA No. 16970 of 2024 is dismissed. 45. There shall be no order as to costs. 46. Nothing in this order shall prejudice the rights or contentions of any of the parties in any proceeding competent in law. 47. Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties on priority basis on compliance of all formalities. (Ananya Bandyopadhyay, J.)