Reasonable-time limit for revisional power bars belated reopening of long-settled revenue entries and settled land rights.

Revisional or corrective power under Section 166B of the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act must be exercised within a reasonable time even when no express limitation is prescribed, including where fraud is alleged. Long-settled Khasra Pahani entries, supported by registered sale deeds, possession, and decades of land revenue payment, could not be reopened after about 50 years, particularly where the State had earlier acted on the revenue position and no clear date of discovery of fraud was shown. Belated interference would unsettle settled rights and create uncertainty, so the notice seeking correction of the entries was quashed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the revisional power under Section 166B of the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317F could be exercised to question Khasra Pahani entries after an interval of about 50 years.

Issue (i): Whether the revisional power under Section 166B of the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317F could be exercised to question Khasra Pahani entries after an interval of about 50 years.

Analysis: Even where a statute does not prescribe any specific limitation period, revisional or corrective power must be exercised within a reasonable time. The entries in the Khasra Pahani were of long standing, the predecessors-in-title were shown in the record, the lands had changed hands under registered sale deeds, and the respondents had been in possession and paying land revenue for decades. The impugned notice was issued long after the Government had itself acted on the revenue position in 1991, and there was no clear assertion of the date of discovery of the alleged fraud. In these circumstances, reopening the revenue records after such a long lapse would unsettle settled rights and create avoidable uncertainty.

Conclusion: The revisional power could not validly be invoked after such an inordinate delay, and the notice seeking correction of the entries was rightly quashed.

Ratio Decidendi: A power of revision or correction that is exercisable without a prescribed limitation must still be invoked within a reasonable time, including in cases alleging fraud, and belated interference with long-settled revenue entries is impermissible.

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