SOPAN NIVRUTI PANGAREversusVITTHAL NAMDEO PANGARE AND ANR.

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                      Shabnoor
                                 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
                                         CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

                                        WRIT PETITION NO.2326 OF 2008

                      Sopan Nivruti Pangare                        … Petitioner
                                 V/s.
         Digitally
         signed by
         SHABNOOR     Vitthal Namdeo Pangare & Anr.                … Respondents
SHABNOOR AYUB
AYUB     PATHAN
PATHAN   Date:
         2026.03.04
         16:56:48
         +0530
                      Mr. S. M. Gorwadkar, Sr. Advocate a/w Mr. Varun H.
                      Thanawala, for the Petitioner.
                      Ms. Shraddha Pawar i/b Mr. Dilip Bodake, for
                      Respondent No.1.
                      Mr. P. P. Kakade, Addl. GP with S. S. Jadhav, AGP, for
                      the State – Respondent No.2.


                                                    CORAM    : AMIT BORKAR, J.

                                                    DATED    : MARCH 4, 2026
                      P.C.:

                      1.      Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith.

                      2.      The present petition raises a limited but important question.
                      It concerns the legality of the order dated 12 September 2007
                      passed by Respondent No.2. By that order, the authority chose to
                      entertain a revision application which had been filed after a long
                      lapse of about eight years.

                      3.      The petitioner therefore questions whether such a delayed
                      revision could have been entertained at all. The grievance of the
                      petitioner is that once such a long period had passed, the authority
                      was required to first examine whether the delay was properly
                      explained. Without doing so, the revision could not have been



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taken up for consideration. The petition is therefore directed
against the very decision of the authority to reopen the matter
after such a prolonged gap of time.

4.   The facts necessary for deciding the issue are not much in
dispute. The consolidation scheme for village Velu was originally
sanctioned in the year 1975 under the provisions of the
Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of
Holdings Act, 1947. After many years, the scheme was modified on
8 September 1994. That modification brought the consolidation
proceedings to a settled stage so far as the village lands were
concerned. However, Respondent No.1 later approached the
revisional authority and on 19 October 2002 filed a revision under
Section 35 of the said Act. This was nearly eight years after the
modification of the scheme. The revisional authority entertained
the revision and ultimately allowed it by the impugned order. The
petitioner contends that such reopening of the scheme after such a
long time disturbs the finality that consolidation proceedings are
meant to achieve.

5.   It is important to notice that while filing the revision
application, Respondent No.1 did not submit any application
explaining the delay. There is nothing on record to show that
reasons were placed before the authority to justify why the
revision could not be filed earlier. Equally significant is the fact
that the impugned order itself does not discuss the question of
delay at all. The order does not record any satisfaction of the
authority that the delay deserved to be condoned. In matters
where a party approaches the authority after several years, the



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authority is expected to first examine whether sufficient cause
exists for such delay. In the absence of any explanation and in the
absence of any reasoning in the order, the decision to entertain the
revision becomes difficult to sustain.

6.    This Court has already considered a similar issue in the
decision in Gulabrao Bhaurao Kakade v. Nivrutti Krishna Bhilare
and others reported in 2001 Mah LJ 31 . In that decision, the Court
observed that even though the statute does not prescribe a specific
period of limitation for certain proceedings under the said Act,
such applications cannot be filed at any point of time without
restriction. The Court held that, in matters concerning verification
or modification of a consolidation scheme, a period of about three
years is normally treated as a reasonable time. If such schemes are
allowed to be questioned after long intervals, the entire purpose of
consolidation would be defeated.

7.    The same reasoning naturally applies to revision proceedings
under Section 35 of the said Act. A person who seeks to invoke
revisional powers must approach the authority within a reasonable
time. The mere fact that the statute does not prescribe an exact
limitation period does not mean that the revisional authority has
unlimited discretion to entertain applications filed after many
years. When a revision is presented after an inordinate delay, the
authority must be satisfied that sufficient cause exists for such
delay. In the present case, the revision was filed after about eight
years. No explanation for this delay was offered, and the
impugned order also does not contain any discussion on this
aspect. In such circumstances, entertaining the revision after such



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a prolonged period cannot be justified.

8.    In view of the above, Rule is made absolute in terms of
prayer clause (a).

9.    The writ petition stands disposed of. No order as to costs.


                                             (AMIT BORKAR, J.)




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