JOGINDER SINGH Vs. ADDITIONAL DIRECTOR, PANCHAYATS, PUNJAB,CHANDIGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these cases address the same issue of the tenability of the order of eviction passed under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act of 1961. In an action by the panchayat for ejectment complaining of unauthorized occupation of various persons, the defence was that the property was not shamlat deh and all of them were in possession of the property in their own right and they could not be evicted.

(2.) At the enquiry before the Collector, Drafts-man, Nabha, had given a statement that he had prepared a plan after inspecting the property and had noticed that there had been constructions with 4 walls that appeared to more than 30 to 35 years old. Each one of the respondents had been contending that they had been in possession from the time of their father and grand father and that their houses have been built and electricity connections had also been obtained. They were making out cases of gathering cattle and using the property as their own. The panchayat examined the Sarpanch and relied on jamabandi for the year 1985-86 to say that the property had been entered as the property belonging to Gram Panchayat, Alhoran. A reference was made to khasra girdawari that was alleged to make reference to the gram panchayat as the owner of the land in column 2. In column 3, the possession of the respondents had been described 'as without payment of rent'. The Collector had held that the land in dispute in khewat/khatauni No. 636/964 and khasra No. 852 with sub divisions fell under the ownership of gram panchayat as per jamabandi and the respondents' possession had been described as in occupation without rent. The Collector held that the respondents had not been able to produce any documentary evidence from which the possession of any one of them had been shown to be in existence before 26.01.1950.

(3.) The line of reasoning adopted by the Collector was approved in appeal and the orders passed by the Collector and the Appellate Authority are in challenge before this Court.