HIRA LAL Vs. CIVIL JUDGE AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution has been preferred by Hira Lal against the judgment of the Civil Judge, Banda, dated 22.9.1982, whereby the appeal of the petitioner was rejected. The appeal had been filed against the order of the Prescribed Authority dated 13.8.1981 allowing the application of the State filed under Section 13 -A of U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act. The relevant facts, briefly stated, are these. In pursuance of a notice under Section 10(2) of the Act, the petitioner filed an objection. On 28.12.1975, the Prescribed Authority held that the tenure holder had seven members in his family. On that basis, the Prescribed Authority computed and calculated the surplus with the petitioner and found that 85 Bighas 5 Biswas land was surplus. The petitioner preferred an appeal before the District Judge who allow the same by the order dated 12.10.1976.

(2.) BEFORE the Prescribed Authority, the point in controversy was about the number of family members of the petitioner. The Prescribed Authority found that there were seven members in the family of the petitioner. One of them counted in the seven members was Raj Kumar. The Petitioner in the appeal before the District Judge urged that as Raj Kumar was major and was possessed of his own land separately, he was wrongly treated to be a member of the petitioner's family. This argument was advanced by the petitioner as he claimed that the land standing in the name of Raj Kumar was liable to be excluded from that of his. It was by adding the land standing in the name of Raj Kumar that 85 Bigha 5 Biswa land had been found to be surplus by the Prescribed Authority. The petitioner Hira Lal had argued that Raj Kumar held 90 Bighas of land in his own name and the same could not be included in the holding of the petitioner tenure -holder on the ground that Raj Kumar was minor.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner contended that on the findings of the learned Civil Judge given in this case as well as that which had been given by the Prescribed Authority on 23.8.1976 the number of members of the petitioner's family was seven, and not six as held by the Civil Judge in the present proceedings. The submission is not correct. It would appear that on 23.8.1976 the Prescribed Authority had found that Hira Lal, the petitioner, had four minor sons, one minor daughter, Hira Lal himself, and his wife. In this way the Prescribed Authority had counted the number of family members of the tenure holder as seven. This included Raj Kumar. Raj Kumar was excluded in the appeal by the District Judge. As a result of exclusion of Raj Kumar, the number that remained was six. Although Raj Kumar was excluded, two hectares of land which had been allowed by the Prescribed Authority on the ground of the members of the family being seven was erroneously and by mistake not reduced. The Prescribed Authority found that Hira Lal did not have any son by the name of Kripa Shankar and this was wrongly claimed by him by means of the objection in reply to the notice under Section 10(2). He further found that out of the two daughters, one had been married and thereafter the petitioner was left with only one daughter. This judgment, as stated earlier, had become final and the question of determining the ceiling area was dependent on it. It was not open in the present proceedings to go into the controversy about the number of the family members in the application under Section 13 -A.