CHEERANTHOODIKA AH\1ED KUTIY AND ANR. v. PARAMBUR MARIAKUTIY l.:MMA AND ORS.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by E

THOMAS, J. Though tht: appellants in these two appt:als art: two dillen:nt persons it would be advantagt:ous to dispose of these two appeals together by a common judgment, on account of a common factor involving in both cases. F

When Kt:rala Land Rdorms Act, 1963 came into force there was prohibition in holding land in excess of the ceiling limit fixed thereunder. Taluk Land Board is one of the authorities under the Act to foe the area of the land in possession of landholders. One Moosakutty Haji made a declaration of the various lands in his possession. (His widow is arrayed as G respondent No. 1 in these appeals since Moosakutty Haji had died). fhe Taluk Land Board found that the said 1-!aji had 877.500 acres of land and on its premise determined that the excess land in his possession (beyond the ceiling limit) was 788.72 acn:s. Moosakutty Haji was directed to sur- render the said excess land. H

7'1B SUPRf.\1f. CUVRT REPORTS [2C<XJ[ l S.C.R. A While so, the appell':IIlts in Civil Appeal No. 3067 of 1997 (the office bean:rs of Vallarnbram Juma Masjid) put-forth a claim that an area of 6.82.500 acres of land in Survey No. 629 of Wandoor Amsan was er-

B roneously recorded as the land in the possession of the said Moosakutty Haji. According to thi: appellants, the said :and was h.:ased by the land- owm:r to other per,uns lung bdon: the commencement of the Act and in - 1984 the Land Tribunal, Wan door had granted C'ertificak of Purchase as per Section 72-K of the Act to the tenants thereof. The h:nants haw gifted the said land to the aforementioned J uma Masjid as pi;r registen;d docu- ments execut.:;d in 1986. Apptllant~., therefore, contend.:d that th.: said an:a should be de linked from the account of \1uosakutty Haji. c A similar claim was made by the appellants in CA No. 8475 of 1997 on the following facts :

An area of 15 acres in Surn.:y No. 357,'1 was outstanding on lease with two persons (Krishnan and Achutho.n) lung before the commencement D of the Act and those person assigned their rights in favour of th.: appel- lants. The Land Tribunal issui:d a Certificate of Purchase in suo motu proceedings l'<o. 88'97. Thus the aforesaid 1.5 acres of land could not have been included in the account of Moosakutty Haji, according to the appel- lant. E It seems the Taiuk Board ignon.:d the Cntificak uf Purchase and connkd the aforesaid ar.:a C1f land in the dccount of Mo•'Sd:.:utty H'lji and then detamined the excess land surr..:ndcldblt by him. Th..: High Luurt in revision petition filed by the appdlants under Section 105 of lht: Acl did not interfere with the aforesaid finding of the Taluk Land Board. Learm:d F Single Judge of tht: High Court had obst:rved thus :

''In the absence of any matt:rial to show any tt:nancy prior to l.4.1964 the Taluk Land Board was right in nut acting on the Certificak of Purchase issued by the Land Tribunal. Under the circumstances it could not be treated as conclusive. Even otherwise G it was not accurate on its fact:.'

Similar observations were made about the claim put forward by the appellant in the other appeals a15o. Cltimately the appellants did not succeed in their claims and hence they have challenged tht: order of tht: H High Court in these appeals filed by special leave.

C.A KVTI'Yv. P.M. CMMA[THUMAS,J.] 729

Shri T.L. Vishwanatha Iyer, karned senior counsd for the appellant contended that lt:arned Singh: Judge of the High Court has not taken into account the legal implications of Section 72-K of the Act which n:ndered a Certificate of Purchase as "'conclusive proof of the assignment to the tenant of the right, title and interest of the landowner and the inter- mediaries, if any, over the holding or the portion thereon to which the assignment rdates. '

When the enactment enjoined that any evidence would be treated as conclusive proof of certain factual position or legal hypothesis the law would forbid other evidence to bi: adduced for the purpose of contradicting or varying the afon:said conclusiveness. This is the principle embodied in C Section 4 of the Evidence Act, when it defined ''conclusive proof'.

"Conclusive proof. - When one fact is declared by this Act to be conclusive proof of another, the Court shall, on proof of that one fact, regard the other as proved, and shall not allow evidence to be given for the purpose of disproving it.'' D

Of course, the interdict that the court shall not allow evidence to be adduced for the purpose of disproving the conclusiveness will not prevent a party who alleges fraud or collusion from establishing that the document is vitiated by such factors. Except regarding the said limited sphere the conclusiveness of the document would remain beyond the reach of con- trovertibility.

In this context a reference can be made to Chettiarn Veettil Arnrnad and Another v. Taluk Land Board and Others, AIR (1979) SC 1573 where a two Judge Bench of this Court has observed that "if a certificate of purchase is issued by the Land Tribunal to any such person and he tenders it in proceedings before the Taluk Land Board, the Board is required by law to treat it as conclusive proof of the fact that right, title and interest of the landowner (and intermediary) ovt:r the land mt:ntioned in it has bet:n assigned to him. It is however not the requirement of the law that the certificate of purchase shall be conclusive proof of the surplus or other land held by its holder so as to foreclose the decision of the Taluk Land Board.'

Learned Judges then stated that by using the expression "conclusive proof' it only means that no contrary evidence shall be: effective to displace H

730 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [20C0) 1 S.C.R. A it, unless so-called conclusive proof is inaccurate on its face or fraud can be shown. After reforring to Halsbury's Laws of England (para 28, Vol. 17 of 4th edn.) it was further observed that "it will not therefore be permissible for the Board to disregard the evidentiary value of tht certificate of purchase merely on the ground that it has not been issued on a proper appreciation or consideration of the evidence on record or that the Tribunal's findings suffers from any procedural error.''

In the present case no party has avtrred that Ctrtificates of Purchase were collusively obtained. In fact, even the authorised officer who was to make a report under Section 105-A of the Act mentioned in the report that the said areas were covered by certificates of purchase referred to above. It is pertinent to point out that the authorised officer did not even suggest that the certificatts were procured collusively. Even the Taluk Land Board did not hold that the certificates of purchase were the product of any fraud or collusion. It was unnecessary for the High Court to have remarked that the certificates were procured collusively as nobody had alleged them to be so.

The Taluk Land Board appears to have sidelined those two legally formidable conclusive proof while considering the claims put forward by the appellants. In the absence of any material to doubt the correctness of the Certificates of Purchase learned Single Judge should have given due weight to those documents as law enjoins. At any rate the party who relied on the certificates had no burden to prove that the certificates were issued after due deliberations or that there was no collusion or fraud in issuing the same. The Tatuk Land Board and the High Court had put the burden on the apptllants to substantiate the validity and correctness of the certifi- F cates. The said approach is fallacious and hence unsupportable.

In the resul.t, we allow these appeals and uphold the claim of the appellants in regard to lands for which the claims were made.

R.C.K. Appeal allowed.