CHATTAR SINGH Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Het Ram, a big landowner of village Pirthala, tehsil Palwal, district Gurgaon, sold 40 kanals of his land to Dalip son of Sulhar of village Aurangabad by a registered sale-deed dated the 6th June, 1958 for a sum of Rs. 3000/- out of this surplus area and the possession of the land was transferred to the vendee. The appellants, Chattar Singh and Bikram Singh, are the sons of Het Ram. They filed a suit for the pre-emption of that land, which was decreed in their favour on the 5th August, 1959, and in execution of that decree they obtained the possession of the land. Respondents 2 to 5 were sought to be settled on that land but the Tehsildar, Palwal, came to the conclusion that the said land could not be allotted to displaced tenants as the appellants had obtained title thereto, which had to be protected. The Tehsildar forwarded the case to the Collector, Palwal, with his report on the 27th September, 1963. The Collector, Palwal, did not accept the report of the Tehsildar and held that the decree passed in favour of the appellants was collusive and they being relations of the prescribed degree of the original landowner, Het Ram, could not take the benefit of the instructions issued by the Government and embodied in Memo. No. 4888-ARI(II)-61/2538-49, dated the 22nd July, 1961. The allotment of the land in favour of respondents 2 to 5 was upheld by him by order dated the 11th December, 1963. The appellants filed an appeal, which was dismissed by the Additional Commissioner, Ambala Division, on the 4th June, 1964. The appellants then filed a revision petition before the Financial Commissioner, which was also dismissed on the 1st November, 1964. The appellants then filed Civil Writ No. 2672 of 1964 in this Court, which was also dismissed by the learned Single Judge on the 3rd October, 1969, following the judgment of Shamsher Bahadur J., in Jai Lal and others v. State of Punjab and others, 1963 PunLJ 51. The present appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent is directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge.

(2.) The sole point argued by the learned counsel for the appellants in that the judgment of Shamsher Bahadur J. has been over-ruled by a Division Bench of this Court (Harbans Singh and S.S. Sandhawalia, JJ.) in Harpal Singh v. The State of Punjab and others, 1970 PunLJ 159. The case before the Division Bench related to the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act and the observations of the learned Judges are as under :-

(3.) The appellants were landless persons when they filed the suit for pre-emption of the land in dispute and this land cannot be taken away from them on the plea that once it formed part of the surplus area of their father. The land in dispute, when it was sold to Dalip, ceased to be the land of Het Ram, the father of the appellants. It became the land of Dalip and till the decree for pre-emption was passed, it remained in his ownership. It was on the deposit or payment of the pre-emption money to Dalip that the appellants became the owners of the land in suit. The character of this acquisition is not that of the acquisition of the land of their father but the acquisition of land belonging to a stranger, as admittedly Dalip was a stranger to the family.