CHANAN SINGH Vs. ADDITIONAL DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The circumstances giving rise to this petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India are these. Consolidation of holdings in village Bathu Chak, Tehsil and District Amritsar, took place and was completed in the year 1961. The scheme of consolidation provided that a landowner having a share in a well would be entitled to a water channel running along suitable killa - lines. The petitioner and respondent Nos. 2 and 4 were share-holders in a well designated as No. 3/28. Respondent No. 4 was allotted land adjoining that of which the allotment was made in favour of the petitioner, on the north. Respondent No. 2 got his allotment in two portions one of which adjoined the land of the petitioner on the south while the other touched the northern boundary of the land allotted to respondent No. 4. It so happened that no water channel was provided to the land allotted to respondent No. 2 whose case is that he did not bother about the same as a watercourse running through the lands allotted to the petitioner and respondent No. 4 was actually available to him (respondent No. 2) for the irrigation of his lands.

(2.) The only ground urged in support of the petition is that although the impugned order was passed ex parte in so far as the petitioner is concerned and no objection was, therefore, taken by him about the petition under Section 42 of the Act being time-barred, the Additional Director of Consolidation of Holdings (respondent No. 1) was fully conscious that he was dealing with a time-barred petition and that, therefore, he (respondent No. 1) had acted without jurisdiction in entertaining the time-barred petition without extending the period of limitation for good reasons. This contention is unexceptionable. That respondent No. 1 was fully alive to the petition before him being time-barred admits of no doubt inasmuch as the impugned order itself indicates that he had taken note of the fact that the matter in dispute between the parties had not been agitated during the previous seven years. It further cannot be gain said that respondent No. 1 proceeded to decide the dispute on merits without caring to determine the question as to whether any extension of time was justifiably called for. He must, in the circumstances, be held to have acted without jurisdiction (vide Bhagwana and others v. The State of Punjab and others,1966 PunLR 307, Partap and others v. The State of Punjab and others,1967 PunLR 222, and S. Gurdial Singh and others v. The State of Punjab and others,1967 PunLR 689). In fact, learned Counsel for the contesting respondents conceded that the petition under Section 42 of the Act was hopelessly time-barred, that respondent No. 1 was fully conscious that he was dealing with a time-barred petition, that no extension of time was actually granted and that the impugned order was, therefore, without jurisdiction.

(3.) In view of what I have said above, the impugned order is quashed as being without jurisdiction. This judgment, however, will not stand in the way of the appropriate State authority from entertaining, consideration and deciding on merits any application of respondents 2 and 3 for extension of the period of limitation provided by law in the matter of the institution of their petition under Section 42 of the Act and after such extension, if any, in the way of that petition being disposed of in accordance with law. The parties are left to bear their own costs. Petition accepted.