The Patna High Court has held that certificate proceedings under the Bihar and Orissa Public Demand Recovery Act, 1914 cannot be validly initiated against a person who had already died before the initiation of the proceeding. Such proceedings are void ab initio, non-est, and without jurisdiction. The Court also made it clear that recovery machinery under the PDR Act cannot be used where the claim is barred by limitation, because Section 6 itself requires the Certificate Officer to be satisfied that the demand is legally recoverable and not time-barred.
Accordingly, the High Court quashed the warrant as well as the entire certificate proceedings initiated against late Vijay Kumar and sought to be enforced against the petitioner and other legal heirs.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice A. Abhishek Reddy recorded that the alleged recoverable amount from Vijay Kumar was Rs. 56,500/-, that the cause of action dated back to April 1985, that Vijay Kumar died in March 2003, and that the certificate case was nevertheless initiated only in 2006-07. On these admitted facts, the Bench held that proceedings initiated against a dead person are void ab initio, non-est in the eye of law, and without jurisdiction.
The Bench reiterated that recovery under the PDR Act cannot be used to bypass the bar of limitation, and that if recovery is barred by law, the Certificate Officer has no jurisdiction to proceed. It reaffirmed that proceedings initiated after the death of the person concerned are illegal and a nullity.
The Bench also specifically noted that the warrant sought recovery of Rs. 3.36 lakhs from the petitioner even though she had never been substituted in Certificate Case No. 10/2006-07. It therefore found both the initiation of the certificate case against the deceased and the subsequent recovery action against the petitioner to be without jurisdiction and beyond limitation.
Briefly, a petition was filed by Manju Devi challenging a certificate proceeding, being Certificate Case No. 10/2006-07, and a warrant directing deposit of Rs. 3.36 lakhs. The petitioner’s case was that the original liability was only Rs. 56,500/- allegedly payable by her husband Vijay Kumar, who had already died on March 12, 2003, much before the certificate case was initiated in 2006-07. She argued that recovery proceedings could not legally be started against a dead person and that no coercive action could be taken against her on that basis.
The State opposed the petition on the ground of maintainability and argued that the petitioner should have first filed objections under Section 9 of the Bihar and Orissa Public Demand Recovery Act, 1914. It was also argued that the dues had been outstanding since April 1985, that notices had earlier been issued to Vijay Kumar during his lifetime, and that under Section 52 of the PDR Act the authorities were entitled to proceed against his legal heirs for recovery of the outstanding amount.
