1. Heard Sri H.N. Singh for the Petitioner and Sri Prakash Padia for the contesting Respondents.
2. The Petitioner was one of the applicants for a retail outlet in response to an advertisement issued by the Indian Oil Corporation on 11.9.2009. The Petitioner, in support of having land, forwarded a copy of a registered lease deed in respect of area 0.2925 hectares of Khata No. 164, Plot No. 2436/5 situated in Mauja Sarenda Tehsil Kheragarh, District Agra, which was executed by one Gajadhar for a period of 20 years. When the application came up for consideration, the Petitioner was held not to have obtained the necessary minimum marks as no marks were awarded for the land shown by the Petitioner. Aggrieved, the Petitioner approached this Court by filing Writ - C No. 29241 of 2010. The contention urged was that the marking was wrong. In the light of that, this Court, by its order dated 20.5.2010 directed the Petitioner to file a representation and directed the Respondents to decide the representation in accordance with law.
3. Petitioner thereafter filed one more writ petition being Writ - C No. 59016 of 2010, which was allowed by order dated 28.9.2010. The contention urged was that without deciding the representation of the Petitioner, fresh advertisement was issued, which was the subject matter of that writ petition. This Court allowed the writ petition and quashed the re-advertisement and directed to first decide the representation of the Petitioner. Thereafter, the representation was decided by an order dated 13 of December, 2010 thereupon the reason given is that the lease deed submitted by the Petitioner was not found suitable during verification from District Magistrate, Agra since the land belonged to a Scheduled Caste person and cannot be leased to a person belonging to General Category without the permission of the Collector.
4. Apart from that, some other reasons were also given such as the Petitioner does not fulfil the requirements under the guidelines/recommendations issued by Indian Road Congress.
5. Learned Counsel submits that insofar as the recommendations/guidelines issued by Indian Road Congress are concerned, they are not binding. Insofar as lease from a land of Scheduled Caste is concerned, it is submitted that U.P.Z.A. and L.R. Act restricts only agricultural land and not other lands.
6. Without going into the controversy of the recommendations of the Indian Road Congress, this writ petition is disposed of on the issue of the lease deed itself. Section 157-A of the U.P. Zamindari and Land Reforms Act, 1950 as under:
157-A. Restrictions on transfer of land by members of Scheduled Castes.- (1) Without prejudice to the restrictions contained in Sections 153 to 157, no bhumidhar or asami belonging to a Scheduled Caste shall have the right to transfer any land by way of sale, gift, mortgage or lease to a person not belonging to a Scheduled Caste, except with the previous approval of the Collector:
Provided that no such approval shall be given by the Collector in case where the land held in Uttar Pradesh by the transfer on the date of application under this Section is less than 1.26 hectares or where the area of land so held in Uttar Pradesh by the transferor on the said date is after such transfer, likely to be reduced to less than 1.26 hectares.
(2) The Collector shall, on an application made in that behalf in the prescribed manner, make such inquiry as may be prescribed.
7. From a perusal thereof, it would be clear that nowhere does the Section restricts itself to agricultural land. On the contrary, the language used is that no Bhumidhar or Asami belonging to a Scheduled Caste Category shall have the right to transfer any land without the approval of the Collector.
8. In the present case, admittedly, no previous approval for transfer has been granted by the Collector though according to Petitioner the lease deed was registered without any objection.
9. In our opinion, once an Act has to be done by a specific method, it is not possible to accept the contention of the Petitioner that because at the time of executing of the lease deed, the said lease deed was registered and that amounts to a transfer granting approval by the Collector u/s 157-A of the Act.
10. We are therefore, clearly of the opinion that the Collector having not granted approval prior to the execution of the lease deed, the Respondents were right in not awarding marks to the Petitioner under the head of land and infrastructure.
11. Considering the above, no case is made out for interference by this Court. Accordingly, this writ petition is dismissed.
