1S/L. 8.
July 5, 2018.
MNS.
C. O. No. 649 of 2018 Sanjit Kumar Bhunia Smt. Gitarani Pandit Mr. Chandradoy Roy, for the petitioner.
Mr. Bhakti Prasad Das for the opposite party.
The preemptee in a proceeding under Section 8 of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955, has preferred the instant revisional application.
By the impugned order, the court below refused to grant stay of the proceedings in Judicial Miscellaneous Case No. 9 of 2009.
It is submitted that a preemption order was passed against the petitioner.
Thereafter, the petitioner preferred a miscellaneous appeal against such preemption order. The said appeal was subsequently dismissed for default. The petitioner filed an application for restoration of the appeal and such restoration was allowed. However, subsequently, the appeal was again dismissed for default, upon which a second restoration application was filed by the petitioner, which is now pending. The petitioner took out an application for stay of all further proceedings in the preemption matter till disposal of such second restoration application.
It is submitted that tomorrow (July 6, 2018) is the date fixed for delivery of possession in favour of the opposite party pursuant to the preemption order.
2After hearing both sides, it appears that undoubtedly the petitioners conduct was extremely poor and it might have been argued that the trial court did not commit any substantial error on that score in passing the impugned order. However, the impugned order does not reflect any consideration by the trial court of the prima facie case involved in the second restoration application. Since law has provided a remedy to the petitioner in the form of an application for restoration, the trial court at least ought to have adverted to the case made out by the petitioner in the second restoration application before refusing the prayer for stay.
In such context, C. O. No. 649 of 2018 is allowed on contest, thereby setting aside the impugned order and granting stay of all further proceedings in Judicial Miscellaneous Case No. 9 of 2009 pending in the Third Court of Civil Judge (Junior Division) at Tamluk, District- Purba Medinipur, for a period of two months from this date.
It is expected that the appellate court will dispose of the second restoration application filed by the petitioner within such two months period. In the event the restoration application is disposed of prior to two months from this date, it will be open to the appellate court to pass appropriate orders modifying/vacating the stay order granted by this court.
However, this order will be subject to payment of costs assessed at Rs.10,000/- (Rupees ten thousand) only by the petitioner to the opposite party within July 9, 2018. In default of such payment, this order will stand recalled and the order impugned will stand re-imposed without further reference to this Court.
3Urgent certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be made available to the parties upon compliance with the requisite formalities.
(Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.)