The Supreme Court set aside an Allahabad High Court order remanding a revenue map correction case, stressing that unnecessary remands only create fresh litigation. The bench said courts must aim to reduce disputes, not reopen settled matters.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it clear that courts should avoid sending cases back for fresh hearings unless necessary, because doing so only creates more rounds of litigation. A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan said the objective of the judicial system is to reduce disputes, not add new ones.
The observation came while the Supreme Court set aside an order of the Allahabad High Court, which had remanded a case related to correction of a revenue map for reconsideration.
The case involved a man whose request to correct a revenue map under the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, had been rejected by the authorities. The High Court had sent the matter back for a fresh hearing.
However, the Supreme Court disagreed with this approach and said that the High Court had wrongly interpreted Section 30 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, which deals with maintaining village maps and field books.
The bench noted that unnecessarily sending the matter back could trigger more litigation. The judges explained that earlier, courts used to believe that if natural justice was violated, the case must be remanded for a fresh opportunity of hearing. But the judiciary’s perspective has changed over time.
As the bench stated,
“We may also add that earlier view by this court was that in case there were violations of principles of natural justice, the matter was to be remanded for affording opportunity of hearing to the party concerned. However, with the passage of time, the view changed.”
The bench emphasised that courts should focus on reducing litigation. It said,
“The idea is to curtail the litigation and not generate it. Any unnecessary remand by a higher court generates fresh round of litigation, which should be avoided.”
The Supreme Court also examined how Section 30 works. The court observed that the law requires the collector to maintain maps and field books for every village, and any changes must be recorded annually or after a longer time if prescribed.
In this particular case, the maps had already been finalised long ago. The bench pointed out that the issue was settled when the appeal filed by private respondents against the collector’s order was dismissed on September 4, 2001.
The court said,
“If the facts of this case are examined, the issue regarding the correction of map stood settled between the parties when the appeal filed by the private respondents against the order passed by the Collector was dismissed on September 4, 2001. The maps were already final.”
The Court further highlighted that after purchasing the land, the private respondents made another attempt to get the map corrected, but that too was rejected. They waited more than 17 years before raising the same issue again.
The bench said they could not be allowed to reopen a matter that was already decided long ago. It added that this was not a situation where any real mistake was found in the revenue records that required correction under Section 30.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal and cancelled the order of the Allahabad High Court, bringing an end to a dispute that had dragged on for years.
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