RAMJI LAL Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Civil Writ Nos. 397, 398, 399 and 400 of 1969 stand concluded by the judgment given on 30.3.1970 by Jain, J. in the case of Maru V. State of Haryana and another, 1970 PunLJ 575.

(2.) Maru, like the writ petitioners, was a tenant of the landowner, Shri Chetan Dass respondent No. 5. He had made an application under Section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (hereinafter briefly referred to as 'the Act') for the purchase of the land under his cultivation. This application had been allowed by the Assistant Collector, respondent No. 4, and an appeal filed by the landowner was dismissed by the Collector, respondent No. 3. A revision petition filed by the landowner had been accepted by the Financial Commissioner in Maru's case and the decision is reported as 1968 0 PLJ 2. The Commissioner has followed this decision and has accepted the revision petitions of the landowner to dismiss the purchase applications of the tenants who are the petitioners before me now. These tenants had gone up in revision before the Financial Commissioner who was naturally inclined to take the same view that he had taken in Maru's case. The purchase applications of the petitioner-tenants were, therefore, finally dismissed by the Financial Commissioner, respondent No. 1, on 30.9.1968. His order (Annexure 'D') is being impugned in these writ petitions.

(3.) The question revolved around the interpretation of proviso (ii) to clause (3) of Section 2 of the Act defining 'permissible area' and the explanation added to this proviso by the Amending Act No. 14 of 1962. This proviso was to be deemed to have come into force retrospectively with effect from 15.4.1953, the date of the commencement of the Act. According to the judgment given by Jain, J. in Maru's case , Shri Chetan Dass, respondent No. 5, is to be treated as a big landowner and the purchase applications of the tenants have to be allowed. Appeals under clause X of the Letters Patent have been filed against the judgment in Maru's case and are pending decision but that is hardly any ground for holding up the decisions in these writ petitions. Following the ruling given by Jain, J. in Maru's case, these writ petitions of the tenants have to be allowed but the learned counsel for the landowner, Shri Ram Rang, has rightly argued that his client should not fare worse off than an ordinary landowner even if we do not take into account the fact that he was a displaced person in his own right. He had himself been allotted less than 30 standard acres of land during his father's life-time and had then inherited more than 35 standard acres on the death of his father. His father was also a displaced person and had died soon after the allotment of the land in 1949. It was this acquisition by inheritance that had made Shri Chetan Dass a big landowner though the legal position was not very clear until the explanation to Section 2(3)(ii) had been added in 1962. Shri Chetan Dass has not made any selection or reservation of his permissible area so far and it may appear that an application made by him to the Collector under Section 5-B(2) for selection of his permissible area had been dismissed by the Collector Agrarian. Reference to this application has been made in the order dated 26.9.1963 of respondent No. 3 (Annexure 'B'). Respondent No. 3 felt helpless at the time because an appeal against the order of the Collector Agrarian declining the landowner's application under Section 5-B(2) was pending before the Commissioner and respondent No. 2 could not even otherwise interfere with the orders of the Collector Agrarian.