In Brief
A tribal landowner's father had sold agricultural property to a non-tribal buyer in violation of Section 170B of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code 1959, which protects scheduled tribe land. The Collector ordered reversion to the tribe owner. The buyer challenged this in a High Court writ petition, which upheld the Collector's order as lawful. The buyer then filed a civil suit seeking injunction and declaring the Collector's order void. The trial court dismissed the suit, but the District Judge reversed this. The High Court dismissed the buyer's second appeal. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, holding that once the High Court had finally determined the Collector's order to be lawful, a civil court could not contradict that determination.
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