PERU PALTU GHOSI Vs. ASSISTANT CUSTODIAN MATHURA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution filed on behalf of two persons, Peru and Abdul Waheed, who claim to be the members of the Sunni Waqf Board, Lucknow, and are acquainted with the facts mentioned in the petition. They say that there was a certain graveyard which has now been acquired by the Custodian of Evacuee Property treating it as an evacuee property. According to their contention it is a graveyard and, therefore, could not be acquired. They have further contended that the property is a takia attached to the graveyard and it can never be declared as an evacuee property. Therefore, it has been prayed that the order of the Assistant Custodian dated the 22nd of September, 1950, declaring it to be an evacuee property may be quashed and the subsequent proceedings that had taken place may also be quashed. There are several preliminary objections to this writ petition. The first is that the order sought to be quashed is dated the 22nd of September, 1950, and the writ petition was filed only after seven years. Such a heated application cannot be entertained by this Court.

(2.) The second objection to this writ petition is that the petitioners nowhere in their petition have said, what is their individual right. It is true that Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution do not lay down as to the person by whom an application for relief under the two Articles can be moved. But according to the observations of his Lordship the Chief Justice Kania, in the Supreme Court case of the State of Orissa v. Madan Gopal, AIR 1952 SC 12:

(3.) It is not the constitutionality or the propriety of a certain order which can be challenged in this Court unless that constitutionality or impropriety affects directly a certain individual's right, but if an individual's right is not affected, an order may be illegal, unconstitutional or void, but a person has no right to come to this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. The present two petitioners have nowhere in their petition alleged as to what their individual rights are and how they are affected. Their merely being members of the Sunni Waqf Board does not entitle them to any right.