HARBANS LAL Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of the writ petition filed by certain land owners of village Bamnoli, Tehsil Mehrauli whereby they had challenged the impugned order of the Financial Commissioner purported to have been passed in the exercise of his powers under Section 42 of the East Punjab Holding (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (in short referred to as `the Act'). The facts in short relevant for deciding this appeal are:-

(2.) A notification under Section 14 (I) of the Act was issued on 08th September, 1993, for carrying out consolidation proceedings in village Bamnoli. The Consolidation Officer was appointed under the Act on June 13, 1996. The Consolidation Officer initiated consolidation proceedings by issuing a notification on June 21, 1996. On June 26, 1996, Advisory Committee under the Act was constituted to supervise the consolidation proceedings in the village. Applications were invited from the residents of the village for allotment and exchange of land for different purposes. After evaluating different holdings in the village a draft consolidation scheme was announced on 26.11.1996. Objections were invited from the residents to this draft scheme. By a notification issued on 11.4.1997, the draft scheme was confirmed by the Settlement Officer. Pursuant to the confirmed scheme, the repartition and exchange of land was completed by December, 1997. In terms of the scheme certain land was given to the landless labourers. It appears that some persons in the village were not satisfied with the scheme and with the exchange, allotment and repartition of the land, pursuant to the said scheme and they, therefore, filed a revision petition under Section 42 of the Act before the Financial Commissioner, who had the delegated powers of the Lt. Governor under the Act. The Financial Commissioner by the impugned order on 21st August, 2000, allowed the revision petition and remanded the case to the Consolidation Officer for redetermination of the specific cases of the persons who had filed the petition before him after notice of hearing to the concerned parties and in accordance with the provisions of the Act, Rules and the scheme. This order has now been challenged by the petitioners by filing the present petition. It may not be out of place to mention here that the persons at whose instance the impugned order was passed by the Financial Commissioner have also filed a writ petition in this Court being CWP No.3479/2001 for a direction to be given to the respondents to implement the decision of the Financial Commissioner. That petition was also heard alongwith this petition and is being disposed of separately.

(3.) The submissions of Mr.Bansal, learned senior advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioners is that once a scheme has been finalised and exchange and repartition had taken place under the provisions of the Act, the Financial Commissioner did not have jurisdiction to call for and examine the records and pass an order thereon. It is submitted that there must be a case pending before the Settlement Officer so as to give jurisdiction to the Financial Commissioner to hear the revision petition of any party. Further argument of Mr.Bansal is that even assuming that the Financial Commissioner had the jurisdiction to hear the revision petition at the instance of some of the villagers, he could not pass any order without issuing notice to the parties interested and without giving them an opportunity of hearing. The contention of learned counsel for the respondent, however, is that since the scheme itself was illegal and under the scheme land was given to certain persons who were not entitled to the same, the Financial Commissioner was within his rights to pass an order without issuing notice to the parties who may have been affected by this order. In support of their respective contentions, reference is made by both the parties to Section 42 of the Act, which reads as under:-