Kurian Joseph, J.— Diary No. 13921 of 2018 and SLP (C) No. 18215 of 2017 are taken on record. Permission to file special leave petition(s) is granted. Delay condoned. Leave granted.
2. In all these cases, the appellants are aggrieved since they have not been permitted to effect registration of the transfer of their property. According to the learned counsel appearing for the State, the property concerned as per Sections 22-A(1)(a) to (d) of the Registration Act, 1908 (in short “the Act”) appears either in the list published on the website or in the notification under Section 22-A(1)(e). Shri V.V.S. Rao, learned Senior Counsel, points out that the people in the rural areas in the State may not have access to the website. The learned counsel for the State points out that a copy of the list is available also with all the Sub-Registrars across the State. Therefore, it is open to the appellants to verify whether they are either in the list prepared by the authorities concerned or as notified in terms of Section 22-A(1)(e) of the Act.
3. The Full Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, in the impugned judgment 2015 SCC OnLine Hyd 407, (2016) 2 ALD 236, had formulated the following two questions: (Vinjamuri Rajagopala Chary case 2015 SCC OnLine Hyd 407, (2016) 2 ALD 236, SCC OnLine Hyd para 43)
“1. What are the prerequisites that are to be satisfied for applying any one or more of clauses (a) to (e) of Section 22-A(1) of the Registration Act to any document dealing with alienation or transfer by way of sale, agreement of sale, gift, exchange or lease, etc. in respect of immovable property presented for registration?
2. Under what circumstances, the act of the Registering Authority concerned (District Registrar or Sub-Registrar) in refusing from registration of the aforementioned document/s by applying any one or more of the prohibitory clauses (a) to (e) under Section 22-A(1) of the Registration Act can be said to be justified?”
4. The above questions have been answered as follows: (SCC OnLine Hyd para 158)
“(i) The authorities mentioned in the guidelines, which are obliged to prepare lists of properties covered by clauses (a) to (d), to be sent to the Registering Authorities under the provisions of the Registration Act, shall clearly indicate the relevant clause under which each property is classified.
(ii) Insofar as clause (a) is concerned, the District Collectors concerned shall also indicate the statute under which a transaction and its registration is prohibited. Further in respect of the properties covered under clause (b), they shall clearly indicate which of the Governments own the property.
(iii) Insofar as Paras (3) and (4) in the Guidelines, covering properties under clauses (c) and (d) are concerned, the authorities contemplated therein shall also forward to the Registering Authorities, along with lists, the extracts of registers/gazette if the property is covered by either endowment or wakf, and declarations/orders made under the provisions of the Ceiling Acts if the property is covered under clause (d).
(iv) The authorities forwarding the lists of properties/lands to the Registering Authority shall also upload the same to the website of both the Governments, namely, igrs.ap.gov.in of the State of Andhra Pradesh and registration.telangana.gov.in of the State of Telangana. If there is any change in the website, the State Governments shall indicate the same to all concerned, may be by issuing a press note or an advertisement in prominent daily newspapers.
(v) No notification, contemplated by sub-section (2) of Section 22-A, is necessary with respect to the properties falling under clauses (a) to (d) of sub-section (1) of Section 22-A.
(vi) The properties covered under clause (e) of Section 22-A shall be notified in the Official Gazette of the State Governments and shall be forwarded, along with the list of properties, and a copy of the relevant notification/gazette, to the Registering Authorities concerned under the provisions of the Registration Act and shall also place the said notification/gazette on the aforementioned websites of both the State Governments. The Registering Authorities shall make available a copy of the Notification/Gazette on an application made by an aggrieved party.
(vii) The Registering Authorities would be justified in refusing registration of documents in respect of the properties covered by clauses (a) to (d) of sub-section (1) of Section 22-A provided the authorities contemplated under the Guidelines, as aforementioned, have communicated the lists of properties prohibited under these clauses.
(viii) The authorities concerned, which are obliged to furnish the lists of properties covered by clauses (a) to (d) of sub-section (1) of Section 22-A, and the Registering Officers concerned shall follow the Guidelines scrupulously.
(ix) It is open to the parties to a document, if the relevant property/land finds place in the list of properties covered by clauses (a) to (d) of sub-section (1) of Section 22-A, to apply for its deletion from the list or modification thereof, to the authorities concerned as provided for in the Guidelines. The authorities concerned are obliged to consider the request in proper perspective and pass appropriate order within six weeks from the date of receipt of the application and make its copy available to the party concerned.
(x) The redressal mechanism under Section 22-A(4) shall be before the Committees to be constituted by respective State Governments as directed in para 35.1 above. The State Governments shall constitute such committees within eight weeks from the date of pronouncement of this judgment.
(xi) Apart from the redressal mechanism, it is also open to an aggrieved person to approach appropriate forum including civil court for either seeking appropriate declaration or deletion of his property/land from the list of prohibited properties or for any other appropriate relief.
(xii) The directions issued by learned Single Judges in six judgments 2011 SCC OnLine AP 179, AIR 2011 AP 132, 2011 SCC OnLine AP 488, (2011) 6 ALD 502, 2012 SCC OnLine AP 20, (2012) 2 ALD 332, 2012 SCC OnLine AP 856, (2013) 1 ALT 774, 2015 SCC OnLine Hyd 32, (2015) 3 ALT 96, 2015 SCC OnLine Hyd 198, (2015) 4 ALT 1 referred to above or any other judgments dealing with the provisions of Section 22-A, if are inconsistent with the observations made or directions issued in this judgment, it is made clear that the observations made and directions issued in this judgment shall prevail and would be binding on the parties including the Registering Authorities under the Registration Act or government officials or the officials under the Endowments Act, Wakf Act and Ceiling Acts.
(xiii) If the party concerned seeks extracts of the list/register/gazette of properties covered by clauses (a) to (e) of Section 22-A(1), received by the Registering Officer on the basis of which he refused registration, it shall be furnished within 10 days from the date of an application made by the aggrieved party.
(xiv) Registering Officer shall not act and refuse registration of a document in respect of any property furnished to him directly by any authority/officer other than the officers/authorities mentioned in the Guidelines.
(xv) Mere registration of a document shall not confer title on the vendee/alienee, if the property is otherwise covered by clauses (a) to (e), but did not find place in the lists furnished by the authorities concerned to the Registering Officers. In such cases, the only remedy available to the authorities under clauses (a) to (e) of sub-section (1) of Section 22-A is to approach appropriate forums for appropriate relief.”
5. After issuing the above directions, the matters have been remitted to the Bench concerned for considering other issues including the validity of Section 22-A of the Act.
6. The learned counsel for the State points out that the main issue pending before the High Court is the vires of Section 22-A of the Act. All the contentions now sought to be raised by the appellants are, in fact, the subject-matter of the challenge before the High Court. However, we find that some of the appellants before this Court are not parties before the High Court. Since the main issue is pending before the High Court, we deem it appropriate to remit these matters to the High Court. Those persons who are parties before this Court, but not parties to the pending writ petitions in the High Court, may get themselves impleaded by way of appropriate application(s) for impleadment/intervention, etc., or may even file fresh writ petitions.
7. We note that in all these appeals, registration has been permitted making it subject to the result of the appeals with a further condition that no further registration shall take place without permission from the Court. It is ordered that the registration already permitted by this Court shall be treated as a provisional registration subject to the result of the writ petitions now pending before the High Court. We make it clear that merely because a provisional registration has been permitted, the parties shall not claim any additional equity. We further make it clear that without express permission from the High Court, there shall be no further transfer. In order to avoid further difficulty to the similarly situated people, we make it clear that it will be open to them to approach the High Court and seek appropriate and similar interim orders regarding transfers during the pendency of the writ petitions.
8. The learned Senior Counsel has pointed out that the same mechanism for redressal under Section 22-A(1)(e) may be made applicable as far as the grievance in respect of Sections 22-A(1)(a) to (d) is concerned. It is pointed out that even in respect of the orders which have otherwise become final, they would be relegated to the same authority and will be subject to further revision/appeal, etc. This is also a matter to be considered by the High Court when the writ petitions are finally heard. Therefore, we permit the parties to raise this contention also before the Bench concerned while considering the vires of the section, in order to reach a workable solution. The Court may consider the issue on its own merit and the impugned order 2015 SCC OnLine Hyd 407, (2016) 2 ALD 236 shall not stand in that way.
9. We further make it clear that we have not otherwise considered the matter on merits. In view of the above, the appeals are disposed of.
SLP (C) No. 36603 of 2017 (Item 7.129)
10. Detag from the batch and list on 3-5-2018.