Allahabad High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Siddhartha Varma, J., allowed a writ petition which was in respect to Section 82 of the U.P. Revenue Code, 2006.
Facts of the case are that petitioner’s agricultural land was declared as non-agricultural. Aggrieved by the same, petitioner filed an application under Section 82 of the Code for cancellation of the above declaration. The aforementioned application was dismissed stating that by canceling the declaration, petitioner was trying to save stamp duty. Later, a revision petition filed by petitioner on the dismissal of above application was also dismissed and for the same, this writ petition was filed.
It was submitted by the petitioner that in accordance with Khasras in the revenue records for the land, agricultural work was going on and prayed for the withdrawal of declaration. It was found on a spot inspection conducted by Revenue Inspector that the plot was vacant and no agricultural work was being done. While responding to the above inspection data, petitioner contended that just because a plot is vacant does not necessarily imply that it is being used for other purposes than agricultural. Whereas the respondent alleged that petitioner was trying to sell the plot and save stamp duty by declaring it as an agricultural land.
The High Court after hearing both the parties quashed the order passed by Additional Commissioner and Sub-divisional Magistrate, Sadar stating that just because a land is vacant, it cannot be concluded that it can never be used for agricultural purposes unless a building is constructed to stop the agricultural scope of the plot. [Sunita Agarwal v. State of U.P., 2018 SCC OnLine All 1326, order dated 11-09-2018]
