JOGINDER SINGH Vs. JAGIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The land in dispute is situate in village Sehauran, Sub-Tehsil Payal, District Ludhiana. Consolidation proceedings were introduced in this village in the year 1952. The plaintiff-appellants claimed that the land incorporated in Khasra Nos. 145 and 147 was allotted to them in repartition proceedings under Resolution Ex. P.W.3/A which was passed on July 9, 1952. Later on Khatauni Istemal was also prepared in which these Khasra numbers were numbered as 730 and 731. The grievance made by the appellants is that subsequently on April 27, 1961 mutation No. 2780 Ex. P.1, was sanctioned by the Revenue authorities under which the aforementioned two Khasra numbers of land were allotted to the respondents. They contested this fact by filing the suit out of which the instant appeal arises. According to them, the mutation had been sanctioned without affording them an opportunity of hearing and that this defect clothed the mutation with no legality. The learned Courts below have non-suited them on the ground that it was not open to a civil Court to challenge the correctness of the orders passed by the Consolidation authorities as was provided in Section 44 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (hereinafter called the Act).

(2.) In this second appeal, in has been vehemently argued by Mr. Mangat, the learned counsel for the appellants, that the appellants had been allotted this land in repartition proceedings as early as in 1952 and there was no justification for any authority to pass an order against the appellants after a lapse of 9 years. He has further submitted that since the order alleged to have been passed by the Consolidation Officer on March 21, 1959, on the basis of which mutation Ex. P.1 was sanctioned, was void, it conferred no rights, title or interest in respect of the land in dispute on the respondents.

(3.) After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, I am of the view that there is no merit in either of the submissions made by Sh. Mangat.