CHINDER PAL Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The admitted facts of this case are that the petitioner's father was allotted 71 Kanals and 2 Marlas of land in the year 1962 by the Collector, Ferozepore, and he was required to pay a sum of Rs. 1,777/50 paise in twenty equated monthly instalments and the petitioner's father continued to pay the instalment as and when it fell due regularly. On 24.12.1968, the Collector, Ferozepore, issued a notice to the father of the petitioner that the allotment of Nazool land made to him on 4.4.1962 was not in accordance with law and the rules and the petitioner's father was required to show cause as to why the allotment of the said Nazool land to him may not be cancelled, to which the petitioner's father filed his reply. On 1.7.1969, respondent No. 2 cancelled the allotment of the said Nazool land without giving any notice to the petitioner's father of the date on which respondent No. 2 was going to decide the matter. The impugned order has been challenged by the petitioner, as his father died on 15.7.1969, and he has succeeded to the land in dispute. The petitioner in his petition has alleged that his father had spent a lot of money in effecting improvements on the land that was allotted to him, as part of it was a Banjar land. The petitioner has impugned the order on the ground that the said order has been passed in violation of the principles of natural justice without giving any opportunity to the petitioner or his father and that the impugned order is not a speaking order, as the Collector has not given any reason as to how the allotment of the Nazool land to the petitioner's father was wrong or was not in accordance with the rules.

(2.) Respondents 1 and 2 have put in on the record their reply to the writ petition and the plea that has been advanced by them therein is that the land that was allotted to the petitioner's father was not from the land which had escheated to the Government and any other land cannot be considered to be the Nazool land unless such a land is made available for allotment as Nazool land by the Government by a specific order and the Government made no such order making the land in question available for allotment as such. As regards the payment of instalments, the respondents have admitted that up to the year 1968 the petitioner's father had been regularly paying the instalments. Another plea taken by the respondents in para 11 of their written statement is that notification No. JS-(IV)-57/3813, dated 8.8.1957, was substituted by the Punjab Government notification No. 7202-JN(Il)-67/4532, dated 14.9.1967, because the definition of the 'Nazool land' given in the earlier notification, dated 8.8.1957, did not accord with the one given in the Nazool Lands (Transfer) Rules, 1956 , and so that fact necessitated the replacement of the earlier notification, dated 8.8.1957, by another notification, dated 14.9.1967, meaning thereby that the definition that has to be given to the 'Nazool land' is the one that is given in the Nazool Lands (Transfer) Rules, 1956 , and as adopted in the later notification, dated 14.9.1967.

(3.) I have carefully gone through the record of this writ petition, as also the written statement filed on behalf of the respondents, and am of the opinion that the impugned order has to be quashed on the short ground that it has been passed without affording proper opportunity to the allottee of the Nazool land i.e. the petitioner.