1 2026:CGHC:26703 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WP227 No. 726 of 2026 1 - Smt. Kalawati Wd/o Late Khora Aged About 68 Years R/o Patpariya, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 2 - Manoj Singh S/o Late Khora Aged About 45 Years R/o Patpariya, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 3 - Vinod Singh S/o Late Khora Aged About 32 Years R/o Patpariya, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 4 - Geeta Singh D/o Late Khora Aged About 44 Years R/o Patpariya, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 5 - Sunita Singh D/o Late Khora Aged About 38 Years R/o Patpariya, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) ... Petitioners versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Secretary, Department Of Revenue And Disaster Management, Mahanadi Bhawan, Mantralaya, Nawa Raipur Atal Nagar, District- Raipur (C.G.) 2 - Commissioner Surguja Division, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) VED PRAKASH DEWANGAN Digitally signed by VED PRAKASH DEWANGAN Date: 2026.07.02 18:10:36 +0530 2 3 - Collector Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 4 - Tahsildar Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 5 - Rajmaniya Wd/o Late Sukhna Aged About 65 Years R/o Homeopathic Hospital, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 6 - Bajrang S/o Late Sukhna Aged About 42 Years R/o Homeopathic Hospital, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 7 - Savitri D/o Late Sukhna Aged About 38 Years R/o Homeopathic Hospital, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) 8 - Leelawati D/o Late Sukhna Aged About 36 Years R/o Homeopathic Hospital, Namnakala, Police Station- Gandhi Nagar, Ambikapur, District- Surguja (C.G.) ---Respondents (Cause title taken from Case Information System) For Petitioners : Mr. Malay Shrivastava, Advocate For Respondents No.1 to 4/State : Mr. Ghanshyam Kashyap, Dy.G.A. Hon'ble Shri R avindra Kumar Agrawal , Judge Order on Board 30/06/2026 1. Since, the matter has been finally decided, the defaults pointed out by the Registry are, accordingly, waived. 2. The present writ petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India filed by the petitioners against the impugned order dated 15.04.2024 passed by the Commissioner, Surguja division, Ambikapur, in 3 Revenue Revision Case No. 202302960100001/A-6/2022-23 (Rajmaniya and others v. Kalawati and others) and also against the order dated 21.07.2025, passed by the Commissioner, Surguja division, Ambikapur, in Revenue Review Case No. 202302960100001/A-6/2024-25 (Kalawati and others v. Rajmaniya and others), whereby the Revenue Revision was allowed and the order dated 12.09.2022, passed by the Tehsildar, Ambikapur, in Revenue Case No. 202102020700004/A-6/2020-21 is set aside and the review application filed by the petitioners has been dismissed. 3. The subject matter in brief is that, the husband of the respondent No.5 and father of respondents No. 6 to 8 namely Sukhna and one Kanwla had filed a civil suit against the husband of petitioner No.1 and father of petitioners No. 2 to 5 namely Khora, for declaration of title and possession of the suit property of the land, total area 5.452 hectares situated at village Namnakala, Tehsil Ambikapur, which was shown in schedule-A of the plaint and the land of schedule-B excluding the house constructed over the land of khasra No. 80/1, area 0.020 hectare, situated at village Namnakala, Tehsil Ambikapur, which was registered as Civil Suit No. 31-A/1995. During the pendency of the said civil suit, a compromise arrived at between plaintiff No.1 Kanwla and the defendant Khora and then an application under Order 23 Rule 3 of CPC was filed before the learned 5th Civil Judge Class-II, Ambikapur, which was the trial Court. Based on the compromise between Kanwla Ram and Khora, a decree was passed in favour of the parties holding that the plaintiff No.1 Kanwla Ram admitted the title and possession over the land of khasra No. 123, area 0.308 hectare, khasra No. 154, area 0.934 4 hectare, total area 1.242 hectare shown in schedule-B and the property of schedule-B obtained by late Manglu in his family partition. It has also been decreed that the Will dated 14.11.1983 executed in favour of Manglu and Khora is admitted by Kanwla Ram, which was in knowledge of Kanwla Ram and Sukhna and Khora was in possession of the said land. Accordingly, the civil suit No. 31-A/1995 was disposed of by the decree dated 09.05.1995. 4. The plaintiff No.2 Sukhna challenged the decree dated 09.05.1995 passed by the learned trial Court before the learned 2nd Additional District Judge, Ambikapur in Civil Appeal No. 16-A/1995. In the said first appeal, the learned Appellate Court after hearing the parties allowed the appeal on 07.02.2000, set aside the impugned decree dated 09.05.1995 and the case was remanded to the learned trial Court to decide the case afresh in accordance with law. 5. After remand of the case to the learned trial Court, an application under Section 151 read with Section 94 of the CPC was filed by the defendant Khora on 27.04.2000 for dismissal of the suit on the ground that on 01.05.1995, there is already an order passed by the learned trial Court allowing the plaintiff No.2 Sukhna to withdraw his suit and he has no right to prosecute the suit further. The said application of the defendant Khora was decided on 09.05.2000 and the civil suit was dismissed holding that there is no claim of plaintiff No.2 Sukhna subsists, which requires adjudication and therefore, the application filed by the defendant Khora was allowed and the proceeding of the civil suit was closed. 5 6. The order dated 09.05.2000 was challenged by Sukhna before the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Civil revision No. 2096 of 2000. In the meantime, the Chhattisgarh High Court came into existence after bifurcation of the State of Madhya Pradesh and the said civil revision was transferred to this Court. The said civil revision was withdrawn on 22.08.2005 with liberty to avail appropriate remedy under the law. Thereafter, challenging the order dated 09.05.2000, the plaintiff No.2 Sukhna filed WP No. 5805 of 2005 before this Court. The said WP No. 5805 of 2005 was dismissed for want of prosecution on 07.10.2014. 7. Subsequently, the petitioners have filed an application before the Tehsildar, Ambikapur for mutation of their names in the revenue records of the subject land, pursuant to the decree dated 09.05.1995 passed in Civil Suit No. 31-A/1995. In the said proceeding, the private respondents raised an objection regarding maintainability of the mutation application, which was rejected by the Tehsildar, Ambikapur on 12.09.2022 and then a revision was preferred by the private respondents before the Additional Collector, Ambikapur, District Surguja, which was registered as Revenue Case No. 5/A- 6/2022-23. The said revision was dismissed by the Additional Collector, Ambikapur by the order dated 30.12.2022. The private respondents had further challenged the order dated 30.12.2022, passed by the Additional Collector, Ambikapur before the Commissioner, Surguja division in Revenue Revision Case No. 202302960100001/A-6/2022-23, which was allowed vide order dated 15.04.2024 and the Revenue Case No. 202102020700004/A-6/2020- 2021 (Kalawati and others v. Rajmaniya and others) pending before 6 the Tehsildar, Ambikapur is dismissed as not maintainable and the order dated 12.09.2022 is also set aside. The petitioners filed a review application on 06.05.2024 under Section 51 of Chhattisgarh Land Revenue Code, 1959 for reviewing of the order dated 15.04.2024, which was registered as Revenue Review Case No. 202302960100001/A-6/2024-25 (Kalawati and others v. Rajmaniya and others). The said review application of the petitioners has also been dismissed by the Commissioner, Surguja division vide order dated 21.07.2025 and then the petitioners have filed the present writ petition challenging the orders dated 15.04.2024 and 21.07.2025, passed by the Commissioner, Surguja division. 8. Learned counsel for the petitioners would submit that, the Commissioner, Surguja division has erred in law and facts and without considering the order dated 09.05.2000, passed by learned trial Court in Civil Suit No. 31-A/1995 dismissed the mutation proceedings initiated by the petitioners. The claim of the plaintiff No.2 Sukhna has already been rejected by the said order dated 09.05.2000 and the challenge to the said order either in Civil Revision No. 2096 of 2000 or WP No. 5805 of 2025 does not resulted in his favour and the order dated 09.05.2000 attained its finality and therefore, the objection raised by Sukhna in mutation proceeding was rightly rejected by the Tehsildar on 12.09.2022. He would also submit that the Will dated 14.11.1983 is still enforce in favour of husband of the petitioner No.1 and father of petitioners No. 2 to 5 and the petitioners are entitled for mutation of their names in the revenue records, but the entire mutation proceeding has been quashed, thereby the Commissioner, Surguja division exceeded its 7 jurisdiction in dismissing the revenue case pending before the Tehsildar, Ambikapur. The Commissioner, Surguja division without going into the merits of the case, decided the revision in mechanical manner and has passed the impugned order and the review application has also been dismissed without considering the error apparent on the face of the record. He would also submit that the right of the plaintiff No.2 Sukhna has already been determined by the decree dated 09.05.1995, passed by the learned trial Court, decree dated 07.02.2000, passed by the learned Appellate Court and the order dated 09.05.2000, passed by the learned trial Court. The private respondents have no right to challenge the mutation proceeding initiated by the petitioners and therefore, the orders passed by the Commissioner, Surguja division suffers from perversity and jurisdictional error and the impugned orders are liable to be set aside by allowing the present writ petition. 9. I have heard learned counsel for the petitioners and perused the material annexed with the writ petition. 10. The facts emerging from the record are that Civil Suit No.31-A/1995 was disposed of on 09.05.1995 on the basis of a compromise between plaintiff No.1 Kanwla and defendant Khora. The said compromise decree, inter alia, recorded certain admissions regarding the Will dated 14.11.1983 and the possession of the parties. However, plaintiff No.2 Sukhna challenged the said decree in Civil Appeal No.16-A/1995 and the learned 2nd Additional District Judge, Ambikapur, by judgment and decree dated 07.02.2000, allowed the appeal, set aside the judgment and decree dated 09.05.1995 and 8 remanded the matter to the trial Court with a specific direction to decide the dispute between the parties afresh in accordance with law. Thus, the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995 lost its legal efficacy and ceased to have any binding force. 11. After remand, the civil suit was never decided on merits. On an application preferred by defendant Khora under Section 151 read with Section 94 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the learned trial Court, by order dated 09.05.2000, closed the proceedings holding that no surviving claim of plaintiff No.2 Sukhna remained for adjudication. Though the said order subsequently attained finality, the fact remains that no adjudication on the merits of the title dispute ever took place after the appellate Court had set aside the compromise decree. Therefore, after 07.02.2000, there remained no operative decree declaring or recognizing any right, title or interest of the petitioners over the disputed land. 12. The mutation proceedings initiated by the petitioners before the Tehsildar, Ambikapur are founded exclusively upon the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995. Once that decree had already been set aside in appeal, it could not have been treated as an executable or enforceable decree for any purpose whatsoever. The subsequent closure of the civil proceedings by order dated 09.05.2000 did not have the effect of reviving or restoring the decree which had already been set aside by the appellate Court. Consequently, the petitioners could not seek implementation of a decree which no longer existed in the eye of law. 9 13. The Commissioner has rightly noticed that after the appellate judgment dated 07.02.2000, the parties, if so advised, were required to pursue adjudication of their civil rights before the competent Civil Court in accordance with the remand order. Instead of obtaining a fresh adjudication of their rights, the petitioners approached the revenue authorities seeking mutation solely on the basis of the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995, which already stood set aside. In these circumstances, the Commissioner rightly held that the mutation proceedings themselves were not maintainable. 14. Since the very foundation of the petitioners' claim, namely the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995, had already been set aside by the appellate Court and no subsequent adjudication on merits declaring the rights of the parties has been made by any competent Civil Court, the petitioners cannot seek mutation of their names in the revenue records on the basis of such non-existent decree. The Commissioner, therefore, committed no jurisdictional error in holding that the proceedings before the Tehsildar were not maintainable and in setting aside the orders passed by the subordinate revenue authorities. 15. This Court is also of the opinion that the submissions regarding the validity of the Will dated 14.11.1983 or the alleged title of the petitioners are wholly foreign to the scope of the present proceedings. Those questions have admittedly not been adjudicated after the remand order dated 07.02.2000 and, therefore, cannot be examined incidentally in mutation proceedings. The Commissioner, after examining the records, held that the respondents had sought 10 mutation of their names in the revenue records solely on the basis of the judgment and decree dated 09.05.1995 passed in Civil Suit No. 31-A/1995. However, the said decree neither declared the respondents or their predecessor Khora as the bhumiswami (owner) of the disputed land nor directed mutation of their names in the revenue records. More importantly, the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995 had already been set aside by the learned 2nd Additional District Judge, Ambikapur in Civil Appeal No.16-A/1995 by judgment dated 07.02.2000, and the matter was remanded to the Civil Court for fresh adjudication of the dispute between Sukhna and Khora in accordance with law. Despite the remand, instead of obtaining a fresh adjudication from the competent Civil Court, the respondents approached the revenue authorities seeking implementation of the annulled decree through mutation proceedings. The Commissioner held that since the very foundation of the mutation application, namely the decree dated 09.05.1995, had ceased to exist in the eye of law after being set aside in appeal, the mutation proceedings before the Tehsildar were not maintainable. Further, the Revenue Courts are not competent to examine the validity of the Will and cannot adjudicate such disputes and the parties must approach the competent civil Court as has been held by the the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of “Tarachandra v. Bhawarlal and Another” 2025 LiveLaw SC 1246, “Jitendra Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh” 2021 SCC OnLine SC 802 and “Rajkumar Sharma and Others v. Manjesh Kumar” decided by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior bench, on 11.08.2021, in WP No. 11871 of 2021. 11 16. The supervisory jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution is confined to examining jurisdictional errors and patent perversity. The Commissioner has correctly appreciated the legal effect of the appellate judgment dated 07.02.2000 whereby the compromise decree dated 09.05.1995 was set aside and the matter was remanded for fresh adjudication. Admittedly, after remand, the dispute was never decided on merits and the civil proceedings were merely closed by order dated 09.05.2000. In such circumstances, the petitioners cannot derive any benefit from the decree dated 09.05.1995, which had already ceased to exist. 17. This Court finds that the Commissioner, Surguja division has neither exceeded his jurisdiction nor committed any error of law in holding that the mutation proceedings initiated by the petitioners were not maintainable. The impugned orders dated 15.04.2024 and 21.07.2025 do not suffer from any patent illegality, perversity or jurisdictional infirmity warranting interference under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. 18. Accordingly, the writ petition, being devoid of merit, is dismissed. Sd/- (Ravindra Kumar Agrawal) Judge ved