09.01.2025 Item No.15 Court No.11 Avijit Mitra WPLRT 56 of 2022 In re: An application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India; And Sree Sree Laxmi Janardan Jew Thakur & ors. - versus - State of West Bengal & ors. Mr. Gautam Guria … for the petitioners Mr. Chandi Charan De, Ld. A.G.P., Mr. Anirban Sarkar …for the State respondents The present writ petition has been filed, seeking, inter alia, a direction upon the appellate authority to refrain from proceeding with the appeals, being Appeal Case Nos. 196(T)/195(T)/197(T) of 2020. Mr. Guria, the learned advocate representing the petitioners, submits that in compliance with the order passed by this Court, the Block Land and Land Reforms Officer initiated three proceedings: Misc. Case No. 14 of 2003, Misc. Case No. 32 of 2006, and Misc. Case No. 02 of 2010, and disposed of these cases with directions for the correction of the record of rights in accordance with the orders passed therein. However, despite these directions, no effective steps have been taken to implement the required corrections. This inaction prompted the petitioners to file an original application (in short, OA) being OA 2228 of 2018 before the learned Tribunal. During the pendency of the aforementioned OA, the State, represented by the Sub-Divisional Land Reforms Officer, filed three appeals against the orders passed in the three respective cases. These appeals were registered as Appeal Case Nos. 196(T), 195(T), and 197(T) of 2020. Mr. Guria submits that, till date, no copy of the memorandum of appeal or any applications related thereto, if filed, has been served upon the present petitioners. Furthermore, the appellate authority has not taken any effective steps to dispose of the said appeals. He contends that the State is attempting to frustrate the orders passed by the Block Land and Land Reforms Officer in the aforementioned three miscellaneous cases by keeping the disposal of these appeals in abeyance indefinitely. He further submits that this issue has been repeatedly brought to the attention of the learned Tribunal, which called for a status report on the three appeals but has not passed any order directing the appellate authority to dispose of the appeals. He submits that given the fact that the OA has been pending for the last six years, an appropriate direction should be issued to the District Land and Land Reforms Officer to dispose of the appeals at the earliest. 2 Mr. De, the learned Additional Government Pleader representing the State respondents, submits the status report of the aforementioned three appeals, which indicates that these appeals have been kept in abeyance due to the pendency of the writ petition arising from the pending OA. The status report, as presented by Mr. De, is taken on record, and a copy of the same has been provided to Mr. Guria in Court today. While Mr. De disputes the contention of Mr. Guria, he states that if a direction is issued to the District Land and Land Reforms Officer to dispose of the appeals as expeditiously as possible, the State has no objection. Heard the learned advocates appearing for the respective parties and considered the materials on record. Admittedly, the issue has been pending before the learned Tribunal for the last six years, and the appeals have also been pending since 2020 and 2022, respectively. Considering these facts, we are of the view that no useful purpose will be served by keeping the writ petition as well as the original application pending any longer. In view thereof we are inclined to dispose of the writ petition as well as the OA 2228 of 2018, directing the District Land and Land Reforms Officer to dispose of the appeals being Appeal Case No. 196(T), 195(T) & 197(T) as expeditiously as possible, without granting unnecessary adjournments to either of 3 the parties, preferably within a period of three months from date of receipt of the copy of this order. The petitioners are directed to communicate this order along with the server copy of the order. It is made clear that we have not gone into the merits of the petitioners’ claim and all points are left open to be considered by the concerned District Land and Land Reforms Officer while dealing with the aforementioned three appeals. There shall, however, be no order as to costs. All parties shall act on the server copies of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Partha Sarathi Chatterjee,J.) (Tapabrata Chakraborty, J.) 4