High Court Cannot Decide Appeal Lying Before A Statutory Appellate Authority Merely Because Of Delay: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently held that High Courts cannot assume the role of statutory appellate authorities merely because proceedings are delayed while setting aside orders of the Andhra Pradesh High Court which had directly decided a mutation dispute instead of allowing the statutory appeal to be adjudicated.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Vipul M Pancholi said that once a statutory appeal was available under the Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 1971, the High Court ought to have allowed the appellate authority to decide the matter.

“Statutory remedies are provided to enable the parties to work out their rights before various fora at multiple levels. Such statutory schemes cannot be set at naught only because of the delays that may arise in that process”, the Court said.

The Court remitted the matter to the Revenue Divisional Officer, Penukonda, to decide the pending statutory appeal on merits.

The dispute concerns entries in revenue records relating to certain properties. After earlier civil litigation over an injunction ended in dismissal of the suit and appeals up to the High Court in 2006, the Mandal Revenue Officer directed changes in the record of rights.

Those changes were challenged before the Revenue Divisional Officer under the 1971 Act. In that appeal, an interim order was passed on November 1, 2007 suspending the amended entries.

While this statutory appeal was still pending, a writ petition was filed in 2008 before the High Court challenging the maintainability of the appeal before the Revenue Divisional Officer.

Separately, a civil suit was filed in 2007 by the rival claimants seeking declaration of title over the same properties and recovery of possession. On March 29, 2022, the trial court declared them owners but found that they were not in possession, and directed delivery of possession through due process. An appeal against this decree is pending before the High Court.

Against this background, the single judge of the High Court, on March 24, 2025, decided the writ petition instead of sending the parties back to the statutory appellate authority. The High Court directed that the revenue records should show the decree holders as “owners” and the opposing party as “possessor”, observing that revenue entries do not confer title but reflect possession. The arrangement was made subject to the outcome of the pending civil appeal.

The division bench later modified this and directed that the names of the writ appellants be shown as both “owner” and “possessor” in the revenue records.

The Supreme Court said the division bench had gone into the merits and made observations that could affect the pending civil appeal. However, it declined to examine those findings and instead held that the entire exercise of invoking writ jurisdiction in place of the statutory remedy was not justified.

The Court held that the single judge should not have stepped into the role of the appellate authority once it was clear that an appeal lay before the Revenue Divisional Officer. It observed statutory remedies exist to allow parties to pursue their rights at different levels, and such a scheme cannot be set aside due to delay.

“We may note that though the writ petition remained pending before the learned Judge for a considerably long period of time, it was not for the learned Judge to take on the role of the statutory appellate authority. Once the learned Judge found that such an appeal did lie and it was within the power of the said appellate authority to take the appeal on record and issue notice therein, the learned Judge ought to have left the matter to the appellate authority to decide the said appeal on merits and in accordance with law. The mere passage of time did not justify the learned Judge stepping into the shoes of the appellate authority”, the Court held.

Setting aside both the March 24, 2025 and March 10, 2026 orders, the Court restored the statutory appeal pending before the Revenue Divisional Officer, Penukonda. It directed the authority to decide the appeal on merits and in accordance with law, while taking into account that the civil appeal in the High Court is still pending.

The Court said that any decision by the Revenue Divisional Officer will be subject to the final outcome of the pending civil appeal. It also left it open to the authority to pass appropriate orders regarding entries in the revenue records after hearing all parties.

Case no. – SLP(C) Nos. 12819-12820/2026

Case Title – Premal Pratap Joisher & Anr. v. Vikram Jethlal Joisher & Ors. Etc.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 404