APHC010202572010 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH AT AMARAVATI (Special Original Jurisdiction) [3569] THURSDAY, THE TWENTY SECOND DAY OF JANUARY TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY SIX PRESENT THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE CHEEKATI MANAVENDRANATH ROY AND THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE HARINATH.N WRIT APPEAL No.891 of 2010 Between: 1. TALLA SAMRAJYAMMA, W/O SWAMYNADHA REDDY, R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. ...APPELLANT AND 1. THE JOINT COLLECTOR, KRISHNA DISTRICT, MACHLIPATNAM. 2. THE REVENUE DIVISIONAL OFFICER, VIJAYAWADA, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 3. THE MANDAL REVENUE OFFICER, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 4. SANDIPAM CHINA KOTAIAH, S/O LAZAR (DIED) R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 5. SANDIPAM THIRUPATHI RAO, S/O LAZAR, AGED ABOUT 60 YEARS, OCC: ARICULTURE, R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, 2 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 6. SANDIPAM YESOBU, S/O.LAZAR (DIED) R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 7. SANDIPAM POUL, S/O.SANDIPAM CHINA KOTAIAH AGED ABOUT 38 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 8. SANDIPAM VEERAIAH, S/O.LATE PATHERU, AGED ABOUT 33 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE, R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 9. SANDIPAM SUKUNDA RAO, S/O.YESEBU, AGED ABOUT 53 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 10. SANDIPAM JARJE, S/O.YESEBUM AGED ABOUT 48 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 11. SANDIPAM KOTAIAH, S/O.YESEBU, AGED ABOUT 46 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 12. SANDIPAM BHASKAR RAO, S/O.YESEBU AGED ABOUT 45 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 13. SANDIPAM CHINA MOSA, S/O.JOHN AGED ABOUT 53 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 14. SANDIPAM YELIA, S/O.JOHN AGED ABOUT 48 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 15. SANDIPAM JAKKARAIAH, S/O.JOHN, AGED ABOUT 46 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM 3 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 16. SANDIPAM DAVEED, S/O.JOHN, AGED ABOUT 43 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 17. SANDIPAM YAKOBU, S/O.LATE SUDHARSHAN, AGED ABOUT 73 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE, R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 18. SANDIPAM MOSHE, S/O.LATE SUDHARSHAN, AGED ABOUT 66 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. 19. SANDIPAM SIKHAMANI, S/O.LATE SUDHARSHAN, AGED ABOUT 58 YEARS, OCC: AGRICULTURE R/O GANAPAVARAM VILLAGE, MYLAVARAM MANDAL, KRISHNA DISTRICT. ...RESPONDENT(S): Counsel for the Appellant: 1. DEVALARAJU ANIL KUMAR Counsel for the Respondent(S): 1. A. RADHAKRISHNA 2. GP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following: 4 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE CHEEKATI MANAVENDRANATH ROY AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE HARINATH. N WRIT APPEAL No.891 of 2010 JUDGMENT: (Per Hon’ble Sri Justice Cheekati Manavendranath Roy) The appellant herein is the unsuccessful writ petitioner in W.P.No.8799 of 2000. She has filed the said writ petition challenging the order dated 31.03.2000 of the 1st respondent therein, whereby the revision petition filed by her under Section 4A of the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 was dismissed, confirming the order dated 23.08.1997 passed by the 2nd respondent therein, who, in turn, confirmed the order dated 24.08.1987 passed by the 3rd respondent, directing resumption of the land in question from the writ petitioner to the State Government. 2. The said writ petition was dismissed by the learned single Judge by order dated 24.09.2010. Aggrieved thereby, the writ petitioner has preferred the present writ appeal. 3. Heard Mr. Devalaraju Anil Kumar, learned counsel for the appellant, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue appearing for the official respondents 1 to 3 and Mr. A. Radha Krishna, learned counsel appearing for the unofficial respondents. 4. Parties will be referred as they are arrayed in the writ petition for the sake of convenience. 5. Facts of the writ petition lie in a narrow compass and may be stated as follows: 5 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 (i) As per the case pleaded by the writ petitioner, she has purchased the land in an extent of Ac.2.29 cents covered by R.S.No.238/2A and also an extent of Ac.2.45 cents covered by R.S.No.238/2B situated at Ganapavaram Village of Mylavaram Mandal, Krishna District, under a registered sale deed dated 28.01.1972. It is pleaded by her that she has purchased the said land with her sthreedhana money. Thereafter, the 3rd respondent in the writ petition initiated action under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 (for short, „the Act of 1977‟) and issued show-cause notice dated 08.08.1987 to her on the ground that the land purchased by the writ petitioner is an assigned land. The writ petitioner has filed her response thereto and in her explanation, it is stated by her that she is a landless poor person and she has purchased the land in good faith and that the said land has been in her possession from the date of purchase and the same cannot resumed in view of Section 3(5) of the Act of 1977. An enquiry was conducted by the competent authority and in the enquiry, it was found that the father-in-law of the writ petitioner, by name Narayana Reddy, owned Ac.21.23 cents of land and out of the said land, the husband of the writ petitioner, by name Swamynadha Reddy, is entitled to Ac.7.08 cents towards his share and as such, the writ petitioner is not a landless poor person. Therefore, by order dated 24.08.1987, the land in question was resumed under Section 4(1)(a) of the Act of 1977. (ii) Challenging the said resumption order, an appeal was filed by the writ petitioner under Section 4A of the Act of 1977 before the appellate authority. The said appeal also came to be dismissed. Thereafter, a revision was preferred under Section 4B of the Act of 1977 and it was also dismissed. 6 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 (iii) The writ petitioner, after the revision filed by her was dismissed, challenged all the aforesaid orders by way of filing the present writ petition. 6. In the writ petition, the legal heirs of the original assignees filed W.P.M.P.Nos.33883 of 2007 and 34167 of 2007 to come on record as party respondents. By order dated 06.09.2008, they were permitted to be impleaded as respondent Nos.7 to 19 in the writ petition. They pleaded that the land in question was assigned to Petru and Lazar, and subsequently, it was inherited by Sudarsan, who is the son of Petru, and by the sons of Lazar, by name China Kotaiah, Pethru and Tirupathi Rao, and that the writ petitioner purchased the land in contravention of the Act of 1977 and that the said transaction is not valid. 7. The learned single Judge, after hearing both sides, dismissed the writ petition by the impugned order. The learned single Judge found that the writ petitioner is not a landless poor person as contended by her. The learned single Judge also found that the Act of 1977 applies even to the transfer of assigned lands made prior to the commencement of the said Act and as such, purchase of the land in question by the writ petitioner is prohibited under the Act of 1977 and it is void ab iniitio. Therefore, the writ petition was dismissed confirming the orders of the aforesaid authorities. 8. Assailing the said order of the learned single Judge, the present writ appeal is filed. 9. Learned counsel for the appellant/writ petitioner vehemently contended before this Court that the land in question that was purchased by the writ petitioner is not an assigned land and it is a patta land and as such, the Act of 1977 has no application to the 7 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 present sale transaction and it cannot be declared as void ab initio. He further contends that as per the information furnished to the writ petitioner pursuant to the application filed by her under the Right to Information Act, 2005, there is no register available with the Department showing that the land in question is an assigned land and it indicates that the land is not an assigned land. So, he submits that the Act of 1977 cannot be invoked to declare the sale transaction in relation to the land in question as void ab initio. He further contends that even if the Act of 1977 is applicable and the land in question is an assigned land, as the writ petitioner is also a landless poor person, purchase of the said land by the writ petitioner, being a landless poor person, is not prohibited under the Act of 1977 and in that way, the sale transaction is saved and protected and it cannot be declared as void ab initio. He further contends that the Act of 1977 is not applicable to the assignments made prior to 1954, as they do not bear any condition of non-alienation, and as the unofficial respondents claim that the land in question was assigned in 1935, the Act of 1977 is not applicable to the said land. Therefore, on the aforesaid grounds, the writ petitioner sought to assail and impeach the impugned order of the learned single Judge. 10. Countering the said arguments, learned Government Pleader for Revenue submits that the land in question is an assigned land and it cannot be purchased by a person who is not a landless poor person and that the writ petitioner is not a landless poor person, as per the findings recorded by the competent authority during the course of enquiry and also as per the findings recorded by the learned single Judge and the said sale of the assigned land is clearly prohibited under the Act of 1977 and, therefore, the sale was rightly declared as void ab initio. So, she prayed for dismissal of the writ appeal. 8 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 11. Mr. A. Radha Krishna, learned counsel for the unofficial respondents, would contend that the writ petitioner did not take any specific plea in the writ petition that the land in question is not an assigned land and, therefore, she cannot now contend that the land is a patta land and that it is not an assigned land and she cannot take the said plea at the appellate stage. He further contends that since the land is an assigned land, it clearly falls within the ambit of the prohibition contained in the Act of 1977 and, therefore, the sale was rightly declared as void ab initio and the land was rightly resumed to the Government. He further contends that the findings of the competent authority who conducted the enquiry and also the findings of the learned single Judge clearly prove that the writ petitioner owns Ac.7.08 cents of land and she does not come within the definition of „landless poor person‟ as defined under the Act of 1977 and as such, the purchase of the subject assigned land by the writ petitioner, who is not a landless poor person, is clearly prohibited under the Act of 1977 and it is hit by the provisions of the said Act and the land was rightly resumed to the Government. Therefore, he strongly supports the impugned order of the learned single Judge and prayed for dismissal of the writ petition. 12. We have given our anxious consideration to the aforesaid submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties. 13. The Act of 1977 was introduced in the year 1977 with the object of preventing alienation of the lands assigned to landless poor persons. The Government, under its avowed policy of assigning lands to landless poor persons to provide them a source of livelihood, has introduced the scheme of assigning lands to the landless poor persons. As it was found that the said lands assigned to the landless poor persons were being alienated, thereby the assignees are 9 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 defeating the very object of such assignment, the Act of 1977 is brought into existence to prevent the alienation of assigned lands and to prohibit their purchase by persons who are not landless poor persons. The Act of 1977 came into force on 21.01.1977. It has got retrospective effect and applies to transfer of assigned lands that took place even prior to commencement of the said Act. The same is clear from the express language employed in Section 3 of the Act of 1977, which deals with prohibition of transfer of assigned lands. Section 3 starts with the wording “where before or after the commencement of this Act” and it clearly envisages that any land that has been assigned by the Government to a landless poor person before or after the commencement of the Act shall not be transferred and it shall be deemed never to have been transferred. Therefore, it is obvious that any sale of the assigned land that took place even before commencement of the Act of 1977 is purely hit by the prohibition contained in the Act and it is well within the competence of the competent authority of the State to order for resumption of the said assigned land. 14. In the instant case, as noticed supra, it is not at all the specific case of the writ petitioner that the land in question is not an assigned land. No such plea was taken in the writ petition. So, there is no factual foundation to that effect in the pleadings of the writ petitioner. Therefore, the writ petitioner cannot now contend, at the appellate stage, that the land in question is not an assigned land and it is a patta land. Further, the writ petitioner also did not produce any evidence either before the learned single Judge or before this Court in this writ appeal to prove that the land in question is a patta land and not an assigned land. Mere producing a copy of the information furnished under the Right to Information Act that the assignment register is not 10 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 available by itself cannot be a valid proof to hold that the land in question is not an assigned land. Therefore, as the writ petitioner failed to prove that the land in question is not an assigned land, the learned single Judge has rightly held that it is an assigned land. 15. It is already noticed supra that the Act of 1977 has retrospective effect and it applies to any purchase/sale of the assigned land took place even prior to the commencement of the Act. Therefore, the contention of the writ petitioner that as she purchased the land in question in the year 1972 i.e., prior to the commencement of the Act of 1977, the Act has no application to the said transaction is devoid of merit and holds no water. 16. As regards the other contention of the writ petitioner that as she is also a landless poor person, purchase of the land in question, even if it is an assigned land, is not prohibited under the Act of 1977 is concerned, the said contention is also devoid of any merit and cannot be countenanced. As per the factual findings recorded both by the enquiring authority as well as the learned single Judge, the writ petitioner is found to be the owner of Ac.7.08 cents of land. So, she cannot be said to be a landless poor person. A landless poor person is defined under Section 2(3) of the Act of 1977, as per which a person who owns not more than two and half acres of wet land or five acres of dry land is considered to be a landless poor person. As the writ petitioner is found to be holding Ac.7.08 cents of land, she is not a landless poor person as defined under Section 2(3) of the Act of 1977. Therefore, purchase of the assigned land by the writ petitioner is clearly hit by Section 3 of the Act of 1977 and the said transaction is void ab initio and the said assigned land shall be deemed never to have been transferred. So, the writ petitioner has not acquired any title or right in respect of the said assigned land. 11 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 17. The final contention of the writ petitioner is that the Act of 1977 is not applicable to the assignments made prior to 1954, as they do not bear any condition of non-alienation, and as the unofficial respondents claim that the land in question was assigned in 1935, the Act of 1977 is not applicable to the land in question. We are unable to accede to the said contention. Section 3 of the Act of 1977 clearly mandates that without any limitation of time, the Act applies to the transactions that took place even prior to its commencement. So, when there is no time limit provided in the Act of 1977, the language used in Section 3 of the Act is wide enough to cover all the assignments made even prior to 1977, irrespective of the year in which they were made. 18. Considering the factual aspects and the legal position, the learned single Judge has arrived at a right conclusion and has rightly dismissed the writ petition. Upon considering the reasons assigned, we absolutely do not find any legal flaw or infirmity in the impugned order warranting our interference in this appeal. 19. Therefore, the writ appeal is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. As a sequel, interlocutory applications, if any pending, in this case shall stand closed. ________________________________________ JUSTICE CHEEKATI MANAVENDRANATH ROY ___________________________ JUSTICE HARINATH. N Date: 22.01.2026 IBL 12 CMR, J & HN, J W.A.No.891 of 2010 THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE CHEEKATI MANAVENDRANATH ROY AND THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE HARINATH.N WRIT APPEAL No.891 of 2010 Dt: 22.01.2026 IBL