From December 30 last year to till date not a single sitting of Revenue Board is held resulting in over 200 revenue cases are pending at Jagdalpur as the dates of hearing kept extending causing great inconvenience to petitioners.
This situation arised after Durgesh Chandra Mishra, the them member of Revenue Board was appointed Commissioner of Bastar Division and no one was appointed in place of him in the Board till date.
It is noteworthy that as per law on a fixed date of every month member of the revenue board hold hearing in the office of the Commissioner at their respective divisional headquarters.
At Jagdalpur appeal and revision of the revenue cases are heard but for the last 21 months not a single sitting has been held. In the State, hearings of Revenue Board are held at Raipur, Bilaspur and
Jagdalpur catering to different districts falling under their jurisdiction.In Jagdalpur bench of the Revenue Board last Thursday and Friday of every month are fixed for conducting the hearing. In September on 27 and 28 September too the hearing was scheduled to be held at Circuit Court but was not held.
In October, 24 and 25 is fixed for hearing but there is no likelihood of holding the same as every month on the basis of Gazette publication dates are fixed, petitioners too come to the court on the fixed date but due to absence of any member of the Revenue Board, the reader extends the date to next month.
Presently, cases of Bastar, Dantewada, Bijapur and Narayanpur are heard at Jadalpur and due to absence of Revenue board member over 100 cases are pending for the last two years.
Out of these pending cases major portion is of Bastar district. Cases of Kanker, a part of Bastar division, are heard at Raipur Revenue Board court.
Generally cases of appeal and revision of the orders delivered by court of commissioner or additional commissioner come to the court of the revenue board, whereas decision of Collector and additional collector is taken up for review by the divisional commissioner’s court.
Meanwhile, Secretary of the District Bar Association Arun Das terming the situation as unfortunate said that bar association has already conveyed its concern to the State administration but no step has been taken so far in this direction. In its next meeting the Bar Association will decide the strategy to get the Revenue Board Court functional at the earliest.