1 Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:124083 Court No. - 49 Reserved Case :- WRIT - B No. - 4772 of 2024 Petitioner :- Chandra Prakash and another Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana Connected with Case :- WRIT - B No. - 287 of 2025 Petitioner :- Jabar Sigh and others Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 289 of 2025 Petitioner :- Nivedita Saxena and others Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 290 of 2025 Petitioner :- Aparna Chauhan and others Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 291 of 2025 Petitioner :- Tulsa Devi and others Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 292 of 2025 Petitioner :- Komal @ Komal Singh and others Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anshu Pandey,Bala Nath Mishra, Sachin Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Krishna Mohan Asthana And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 102 of 2025 Petitioner :- Bhanu Pratap Singh Respondent :- State of U.P. and others 2 Counsel for Petitioner :- Narsingh Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 131 of 2025 Petitioner :- Uday Narayan Singh Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Narsingh Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 15 of 2025 Petitioner :- Jai Prakash Singh and another Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Peeyush Kumar Pathak,Pramod Kumar Singh,Prateeyush Kumar Pathak,Thakur Prasad Yadav Counsel for Respondent :- Pramod Kumar Singh,C.S.C. And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 357 of 2025 Petitioner :- Ramanand Yadav Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Prashant Sharma,Sanjay Kumar Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. And Case :- WRIT - B No. - 462 of 2025 Petitioner :- Virendra Kumar Shukla Respondent :- State of U.P. and others Counsel for Petitioner :- Shriprakash Shrivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Pankaj Kumar Gupta, Shailesh Kumar Tripathi,Sudhir Bharti Hon'ble J.J. Munir,J. 1. In the present writ petition and all connected matters, the substance of the cause, that the respective petitioners canvas, is the same. They do not want the consolidation proceedings in their respective villages notified under Section 4(2) of the Uttar Pradesh Consolidation Holdings Act, 1953 (for short, 'the Act') to go ahead. In the majority of the writ petitions, the prayer is to quash the notification under Section 4(2) of the Act. In three writ petitions, to wit, Writ-B No.15 of 2025, Writ-B No.357 of 2025, and, Writ-B No.462 of 2025, the petitioners had come earlier 3 seeking a relief to quash the notification under Section 4(2), but were asked by this Court to represent their cause before the Commissioner of Consolidation, U.P. The petitioners in the aforesaid writ petitions represented their cause to the Commissioner of Consolidation, who, by orders of various dates, has rejected the relative representations involved in each of the said petitions. In these three writ petitions, the petitioners have prayed that the orders of the Consolidation Commissioner be quashed and respondents directed not to proceed further with consolidation operations in the respective villages. In substance, therefore, similar relief has been sought in each of the writ petitions. In one of the writ petitions, out of the three last mentioned, to wit, Writ-B No.15 of 2025, the prayer is slightly different, in that, that after the prayer seeking to quash the order of the Consolidation Commissioner, declining to revoke the notification under Section 4(2) of the Act, the mandamus sought is not to restrain consolidation operations in Village Mahuji, Tehsil Sakaldiha, District Chandauli, altogether, but to issue a notification under Section 4(2) afresh, after excluding a certain part of the land that abuts the river. 2. A common question of law, arising on similar facts being involved in all these writ petitions, Writ-A No.4772 of 2024 has been heard as the leading case. We would, therefore, notice facts as much as relevant to the question of law involved from the leading case. The common question of law, that is involved in all these petitions is if a writ petition lies questioning the issue of a notification under Section 4(2) of the Act. There is some inaccurate reference to Section 6 of the Act in the orders dated 31.01.2025 and 13.02.2025, which is not involved in this batch of petitions. The reference in the said orders to Section 6 of the Act shall be ignored. Since the question involved in all these 4 writ petitions, above formulated, relates to maintainability, all these petitions, all learned Counsel for the petitioners were heard in support of the motion to admit the petitions to hearing. 3. Heard Mr. B.N. Mishra, learned Counsel for the petitioners in Writ-B No.4772 of 2024, Writ-B No.287 of 2025, Writ-B No.289 of 2025, Writ-B No.290 of 2025, Writ-B No.291 of 2025, Writ-B No.292 of 2025; Mr. Narsingh Pandey, learned Counsel for the petitioners in Writ-B No.102 of 2025 and Writ-B No.131 of 2025; Mr. Peeyush Kumar Pathak, learned Counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Pramod Kumar Singh, learned Counsel appearing for the private respondents in Writ-B No.15 of 2025; Mr. Prashant Sharma, learned Counsel for the petitioner in Writ-B No.357 of 2025; and, Mr. Shriprakash Shrivastava, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Shailesh Kumar Tripathi, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the private respondents in Writ-B No.462 of 2025. Mr. Ashutosh Kumar Rai, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel along with Mr. Ashish Chandra Nishad, learned Standing Counsel has been heard on behalf of the State, in all the matters. 4. The facts in the leading petition would show that a notification under Section 4(2) of the Act was issued by the Consolidation Commissioner, U.P. on 19.01.2024, relating to Village Fazalpur, Pargana and Tehsil Moradabad. The petitioners are farmers of Village Fazalpur, Pargana and Tehsil Mordabad, which adjoins the city of Moradabad. The petitioners say that their village is included in the Master Plan of the Moradabad Development Authority for the years 2021 – 2031. It is urged that the petitioners' village, though a part of the Master Plan, the fact was wrongly mentioned in the report while forwarding the proposal to bring the village under consolidation 5 proceedings. A collusive report in this regard is attributed to the Consolidation Officer-II, Moradabad and the Assistant Consolidation Officer, Moradabad. The proposal in this case to bring the village under consolidation is one dated 28.07.2023. It is the petitioners' case that without verifying facts carried in the proposal dated 28.07.2023, Village Fazalpur was included in the list prepared for consolidation operations by the Consolidation Commissioner, U.P. 5. A notification under Section 4(2) relating to Village Fazalpur was issued on 19.01.2024, which is impugned in this petition. Various grounds have been raised by the petitioners directed to show that conditions exist where under the provisions of Section 6 of the Act, read with Rule 17 of the Uttar Pradesh Consolidation of Holdings Rules, 1954, the notification under Section 4(2) ought be cancelled by the respondents. For the same reasons, the petitioners would submit that the notification under Section 4(2) ought be quashed by this Court. No doubt, in the leading petition and the batch of petitions relating to the same village, some relevant facts, relevant to the exercise of power under Section 6 of the Act, seem to exist. But, a case for issue of notice to hear the other side and determine if such facts do exist, would arise if the nature of power under Section 4 were executive or ministerial in nature. The nature of powers that is exercised while issuing a notification under Section 4(2) or 4-A of the Act (one of the cases in the batch involves the issue of a notification under Section 4-A, there being an earlier round of consolidation concluded under Section 52), being not at all executive or administrative, these notifications cannot be quashed, nor the orders upholding them involved in some of the writ petitions, on grounds raised to lay challenge to mere executive or 6 administrative orders. It is by now well settled that a notification under Section 4 or 4-A, notifying consolidation operations is issued in the exercise of legislative powers of the State; not merely executive or administrative powers. Therefore, grounds available to challenge administrative or executive orders of the Government are not at all relevant to question the validity of a notification under Section 4 or 4-A of the Act. 6. A reference in this regard may be made to a Bench decision of this Court in Agricultural & Industrial Syndicate Limited v. State of U.P., 1975 SCC OnLine All 521, followed by a learned Single Judge in Raja Ram Ojha v. Consolidation Commissioner, U.P, Lucknow, 2014 SCC OnLine All 15410 and in a later Bench decision in Vishvadev vs. Director of Consolidation and others, Neutral Citation No. 2016:AHC: 182608-DB. 7. The principles more or less regarding the nature of a notification under Section 4 or 6 of the Act, the latter not being involved here, laid down in Agricultural & Industrial Syndicate Limited (supra), have been approved by a later Bench decision of this Court in Dalip Singh and other v. Vikram Singh and others, (2015) SCC OnLine All 7569. The following remarks of the Division Bench in Dalip Singh (supra) are relevant: "The provisions of sections 4 and 6 of the Act came up for consideration before a Division Bench of this Court in Agricultural & Industrial Syndicate Ltd. (supra). The Division Bench held that when the Director of Consolidation issues a notification under section 4 or section 6, he performs neither a quasi judicial function nor does he exercise an administrative power. In the view of the Division Bench, the power was of a legislative nature. Moreover, it was held that if a notification is issued under section 6, the land holder has no rights which are affected in 7 consequence of such a notification....." (emphasis by Court) 8. The petitioners in this case largely challenge notifications under Section 4 of the Act and in one case under Section 4-A, asking these to be quashed and the consolidation operations forbidden. In those cases, where the order of the Consolidation Commissioner, U.P., turning down the same request, is impugned, the relief ultimately works out to no more than questioning the notification under Section 4 or 4-A of the Act. If the petitioners seek to challenge a notification under Section 4 of the Act, they would have to raise a challenge of the kind that is necessary to assail the vires of a statute or an Act of Parliament or the State Legislature. It cannot be questioned on grounds that are available to assail administrative orders or other executive decisions of the Government. In the present case, no such grounds, as would show that the petitioners have challenged the vires and constitutional validity of the notification under Section 4 or 4-A of the Act, have been raised or canvassed before us. We are, therefore, of opinion that these writ petitions are not maintainable and deserve to be dismissed in limine. 9. In the result, this writ petition and all the connected matters are summarily dismissed. 10. There shall be no order as to costs. Order Date :- 28.7.2025 Anoop (J.J. Munir) Judge Digitally signed by :- ANOOP KUMAR SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad