SUMMA RAM Vs. CHAIN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) KORU and Maru who have been described as cousin brothers were displaced persons from some village in district Sialkot which is now a part of West Pakistan. After their migration to this side of Indo-Pakistan border they were separately allotted some evacuee lands by the Rehabilitation authorities and sanads granting them permanent rights had been issued in their favour. Koru died soon after this allotment and Maru succeeded to the land allotted to him. In the meanwhile, there was consolidation of holdings in the village and the land in dispute is a part of the land that fell to Maru's share in the consolidation proceedings. Maru sold all his land in favour of Chain Singh, plaintiff-respondent NO. 1, in the years 1957 and 1959.

(2.) THE Rehabilitation authorities came to know that the lands left by Koru and Maru in West Pakistan were under mortgage with possession with some Muslims. It was therefore felt that Koru and Maru were not entitled to all the land that had been allotted to them. Maru who was the surviving allottee was asked to pay the mortgage debt at a flat rate of Rs. 450/- per standard acre of the area allotted to him and the deceased and on this failure to comply the allotment of some of the area was cancelled. The evacuee lands retrieved by the Rehabilitation authorities by this cancellation of the allotments made in favour of Koru and Maru were then put up for sale at a public auction. Chain Singh himself purchased some area out of the retrieved lands at this public auction held in 1961. The land in dispute was however purchased at the public auction conducted by the Rehabilitation authorities by the defendant-appellants, Summa Ram and Lachhman Singh.

(3.) CHAIN Singh, plaintiff-respondent No. 1, then filed this suit for the possession of the land in dispute which had been purchased by the defendant-appellants in the public auction. It was his case that the Rehabilitation authorities had no legal right to cancel the permanent allotments of evacuee lands made in favour of Koru and Maru and that the had lawfully purchased the entire land from Maru by virtue of the registered sale deeds executed in his favour in the years 1957 and 1959. The defendants, Summa Ram and Lachhman Singh were therefore described to have acquired no valid rights at the public auction. The suit was decreed by the trial Court in respect of the entire land except for an area of about 4 Marlas which was found not to have formed the subject-matter of the public auction in favour of Summa Rao, appellant No. 1. The trial Court had relied upon the Division Bench ruling in Shiv Dayal v. Union of India, (1964), 66 Pun LR 770 and had come to the findings, inter alia, that the order of cancellation of the suit land passed by the Rehabilitation authorities was illegal, ultra vires, without jurisdiction and void.