Collector's Reference Made After Delay Of Over 3 Years Invalid In Law: Rajasthan HC Quashes Order Mutating Land Entries In Deity's Favour

The Jodhpur bench of the Rajasthan High Court quashed a Collector's 20-year-old reference order pertaining to a land parcel which said that as the land belonged to a deity–Doli Mandit Shri Thakur Ji Purohita, it could not have been recorded in the name of the original owner, from whom the petitioners had subsequently purchased the land. The bench of Justice Dinesh Mehta highlighted that the reference was made by the Collector 20 years after the mutation entries in favour of the original owner from whom the petitioners had purchase the land and held that in the Supreme Court cases of Tara vs State of Rajasthan and Joint Collector Ranga Reddy District and Anr. The Court was hearing a petition filed by the petitioners challenging the reference order of the Collector and the resulting order of the Board of Revenue as per which the mutation entries in relation to a land belonging to the petitioners were set aside on the ground that the land belonged to the deity who was a perpetual minor. The petitioners argued that firstly, the original owner passed away during the pendency of the reference order and the Board of Revenue passed the impugned order without his legal representative being brought on record.