JAIMAL SINGH Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petition challenges the orders passed in consecutive tiers of the authorities constituted under the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1987 for partition amongst the proprietors in the village in relation to shamilat deh. The petitioners' entitlement to the property as proprietors along with the private respondents had been affirmed in Civil Suit No. 52/71 of 1976 filed before the learned Sub Judge, IInd Class, Dasuya. The petitioners contend that the suit had been instituted by 23 persons as plaintiffs all of whom are the predecessors-in-title of the contesting private respondents in this writ petition. The suit had been filed against 146 persons and the petitioners are the legal representatives of some of the defendants in the above suit. A chart is prepared and filed as Annexure P-1/A describing each one of the petitioners as the legal heirs of the defendants and correlating the names, who are cited as defendants in the civil suit referred to above. Many of the plaintiffs in the said civil suit are reported to have died and the relationship of those plaintiffs to the contesting respondents is also brought out in the chart prepared and filed before this Court. Neither the relationship nor the representative character as urged in the petition and brought out by the chart have been denied by the contesting respondents.

(2.) The plaintiffs in the above suit instituted in the year 1976 failed in their attempt to seek for exclusive right to the property as they claimed and the Court dismissed the suit on 20.10.1978 finding that the defendants mentioned in the suit were also joint proprietors of the property either as subsequent purchasers or persons who had been displaced and later allotted the properties or persons who were previously occupancy tenants and whose rights were converted as proprietors by operation of law. The civil court held that the plaintiffs (respondents or the representatives of the plaintiffs in the writ petition) had failed to prove that they have exclusive ownership of the suit land. The Court held that all the properties of the village have interest in the suit land on the basis of hasab rasab khewat. The Court held that the case was decided against the plaintiffs and in favour of the defendants holding that they would be joint proprietors. There had been an appeal against trial Court's judgment and the appellate Court also affirmed the judgment of the trial Court and it held by way of conclusion as follows:

(3.) The persons who had filed the suit and whose suit was also dismissed, presented a petition later through some of the legal representatives for partition under the Punjab Land Revenue Act before the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade. The partition was sought in the absence of the petitioners or that predecessors and the petitioners appear to have moved a application for impleadment under Order 1 Rule 10. In that application itself they had given detail of area of parties and civil suit and how the applicants as the representatives of some of the defendants were also entitled to partition of their respective shares. This application was dismissed holding that the applicants were occupancy tenants and they cannot ask for partition although they were treated as co-owners in the civil suit. A similar line of reasoning was adopted by the Collector, Dasuya when he held that mere assertion of being joint owners or co-owners was not sufficient as per Punjab Land Records Manual Paragraphs 18.16 and 7.19. A further revision to the Commissioner against the interim order had been filed and by that time, the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade disposed of the petition for partition on 03.10.1989. Aggrieved against this order even when the petitioners were not parties, the petitioners challenged the final order before the Financial Commissioner in the revisional proceedings itself. They had not opted to resort to an action by appeal only because the revision was already pending and the order had been passed by the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade even before the revision against the interim order was disposed of. The Financial Commissioner held that there was a provision for an appeal against the final order and a revision filed before him was not competent.