The Allahabad High Court has held that the Prescribed Authority under the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 is not a Civil Court and that an order passed by it can be challenged by way of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

It held that the powers and privileges of a Civil Court conferred on the Prescribed Authority by Section 37 of the Act do not make it one, as those powers can be exercised only for determining surplus land.

Section 37 of the Ceiling Act provides that any officer or authority holding an enquiry or hearing an objection under the Act shall, insofar as it may be applicable, have all the powers and privileges of a civil court, and follow the procedure laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for the trial and disposal of suits relating to immovable property.

Section 38 confers those powers and privileges on the appellate court.

Justice Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi held,

“..this much can be safely observed that the Prescribed Authority under the Ceiling Act is not a Civil Court, despite being conferred power and privileges of Civil Court under Section 37 of Ceiling Act as exercise of such power is limited to determination of surplus land.”

The land in dispute belonged to Ch. Rasheed Uddin Ashraf, who died in 1939 leaving four sons who succeeded to it under a registered will and were recorded as tenure holders in the revenue records. Ceiling proceedings were drawn up against the eldest son, Ch. Azeem Uddin Ashraf, with the holdings of all four brothers clubbed together in his hands. A notice issued in 1974 to the petitioner's father, Ch. Emad Uddin Ashraf, who had died in 1973, was withdrawn in 1981 as having been issued against a dead person, with a direction to proceed against his heirs.

The petitioner's case is that no fresh notice was ever issued to them.

In 2003 the Prescribed Authority declared 56-5-19 surplus out of a total holding of 85-3-3, treating the whole of the land as Azeem Uddin's. The Appellate Authority set that order aside on 29.11.2003 and remanded the case with directions to separate the shares of the co-tenure holders and to leave out land within municipal limits. The fresh order of 18.08.2011 again proceeded against Azeem Uddin as a single tenure holder.

An appeal by the transferees of part of the land was allowed on 05.10.2018, taking the land sold to them out of the ceiling proceedings. The petitioner's appeal was allowed on 04.04.2025 and the matter remanded a second time, with directions to compute the ceiling limit of each heir separately, to exclude land sold before the Act came into force and land within municipal limits, and to issue separate notices to anyone found holding above the limit. By the impugned order of 13.10.2025, the Prescribed Authority again declared land surplus.

The State and respondent no. 4 raised a preliminary objection to the writ petition, pleading that an appeal lay under Section 13 of the Ceiling Act and that one of the aggrieved parties had already filed such an appeal, which was pending. Relying on Radhey Shyam v. Chhabi Nath and Romil Jain v. Ashok Kumar Jain, it was argued that the Prescribed Authority passes orders as a civil court, so that the order could at most have been assailed under Article 227.

The petitioner submitted that the mere availability of a statutory remedy does not oust the writ jurisdiction. It was argued that an appeal filed by another party does not shut the petitioner out of Article 226. It was also urged that Section 12 empowers the Prescribed Authority only to determine surplus land, not to adjudicate right, title or interest, which falls to the civil court alone.

The Court observed that neither the scheme nor the object of the Ceiling Act confers power to adjudicate on right, title and interest, the Prescribed Authority being empowered only to declare land beyond the permissible limit as surplus on the basis of the revenue records. Holding the objection of respondent no. 4 attractive but not tenable in law, the Court said

“..orders passed by Civil Court ought to be challenged under Article 227 whereas orders passed by the statutory and quasi-judicial authorities which are not Civil Courts are challengeable under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.”

On alternative remedy, the Court held that a petitioner cannot be sent back to the statutory appeal as a matter of routine where natural justice has been violated, where the order is without jurisdiction, or where relegation would only perpetuate the injustice complained of.

Turning to the order itself, the Court found that the Prescribed Authority had reproduced the remand directions and then passed over them, repeating its earlier orders without separating the holdings of the four brothers or marking off the land within the urban area. The brothers were major, independent and recorded tenure holders long before the Ceiling Act came into force and had to be proceeded against separately, and the Appellate Authority was right to treat that separation as a condition precedent, held the Court.

“..failure to abide by the same while passing the order impugned has resulted into abuse of process of law as well as gross violation of the order of remand and also amount to judicial indiscipline.”

Relying on K.P. Dwivedi v. State of U.P., the Court held that an authority to which a case is remanded must keep within the limits set by the remand order, and that natural justice requires not only a hearing but adherence to the procedure the statute prescribes. It observed,

“The provisions of the Ceiling Act being confiscatory in nature adherence to the procedure prescribed by the Act itself is mandatory”

The Court held that relegating the petitioner to the appeal would in any event end in another remand and further delay, and that subjecting the tenure holders to more litigation would not serve the interest of justice. It observed that land held above the statutory limit must be declared surplus and taken over by the State, but only after a statement is prepared strictly as the Act requires.

Accordingly, the order dated 13.10.2025 was quashed and the matter remanded to the Prescribed Authority for fresh determination in accordance with law, to be concluded preferably within six months of a certified copy of the order being produced before it.

The writ petition was allowed.