Reasons Are Backbone Of Order; Merely Mentioning That He Agreed With Tahsildar's Report Not Sufficient: Madhya Pradesh HC Sets Aside SDO’s Unreasoned Order

The Court was hearing a Writ Petition filed seeking to set aside the impugned order as well as seeking directions to the respondent authorities to amend the land records to reflect the reduction in the original land area that has already been sold.

The bench of Justice GS Ahluwalia observed, “Reasons are the backbone of the order and only from the reasons it can be deciphered as to what persuaded the authority to draw a particular conclusion.Merely by mentioning that SDO has agreed with the report submitted by an order in accordance with law.."

Advocate Himanshu Mishra appeared for the Appellant and Advocate Alabhya Bajpai appeared for the Respondent.

In the present case, the Petitioner filed an application for correction of record and by the impugned order, the said application has been rejected. The contention to bypass the statutory remedy of appeal is that the Petitioner was not granted any opportunity to object to the report submitted by the Tahsildar.

The Court, however, noted that merely mentioning that SDO has agreed with the report submitted by Tahsildar, cannot be said to be an order by law.

The Court relied on the Supreme Court decision in Central Board of Trustees v. M/s Indore Composite Pvt. Ltd. and quoted, “..in the absence of any application of judicial mind to the factual and legal controversy involved in the appeal and without there being any discussion, appreciation, reasoning and categorical findings on the issues…. it is difficult for this Court to sustain such order…”

The Court said that once the Petitioner is not aware of the reasons for accepting the report submitted by Patwari through Tahsildar then the Court can ignore the availability of alternative remedy because, in the absence of reasons, the Petitioner is not in a position to meet out the grounds on which his application was rejected.

Accordingly, the Court allowed the Petition and set aside the order by the SDO.