Revenue Board Setting Aside Remand Cannot Also Reject Plaintiff's Suit: Rajasthan High Court

The petitioner's revenue suit for correction of entries, claiming khatedari rights, was decreed by the Assistant Collector, Amer, on 27.12.2017 (paras 2, 8). Two appeals followed, and on 23.04.2018 the Revenue Appellate Authority, Jaipur, allowed one in full and partly allowed the other, by respondents 1 to 3, remanding the suit to the Assistant Collector (para 9). Respondents 1 to 3 filed a second appeal under Section 224 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 (para 3). On 29.07.2026 the Board of Revenue set aside the decisions of both lower authorities and rejected the suit itself, and the petitioner filed a writ petition (paras 1, 10).

The Court relied on P.E. Prasannakumari v. T.K. Ambujakshi, where the Supreme Court held that the only logical order on an appeal against a remand was to set the remand aside and direct the first appellate court to decide the appeal on merits, since no factual or legal issue had been adjudicated and the appellants could not be deprived of the remedy of first appeal (para 11). It read that decision as holding that when a higher court finds an order of remand not just and proper, it may remand the matter to the first appellate court, but cannot reject the plaintiff's suit; otherwise the party loses the remedy of first appeal (para 12). That analogy applied here (para 13). If the Board considered the Appellate Authority's order unsustainable, it should have quashed the remand and sent the matter back with directions to decide the appeal on merits; instead it also dismissed the suit, depriving the petitioner of a first appeal (para 14). The Court did not decide whether a second appeal under Section 224 lies against a remand order, and made clear that it had not adjudicated the merits or the parties' rights (paras 3, 18).