NAND SINGH Vs. PUNJAB KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SHRIMATI Punjab Kaur, Respondent in this Court, instituted a suit for possession of 52 bighas 1 biswa of the agricultural land situated in village Saadatpur, tehsil Malerkotla. This property was held by Shrimati Shamo, widow of Mali, as dakhil Tear. By the enforcement of Patiala and East Punjab States Union Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Act of 1953, (President's Act No. 3 of 1953), Shrimati Shamo acquired ownership rights in the said land with the result that the proprietary rights became her own acquisition. Shrimati Shamo died in June, 1956. On her death a dispute regarding the mutation of the estate left by her arose. The Plaintiff claimed that the land being the self -acquired property of Shrimati Shamo and she being the daughter of Shrimati Shamo and Mali was entitled to inherit it to the exclusion of the reversioners. Nand Singh Appellant in this Court claiming to be a reversioner of Mali on the other hand lay claim to the land on the allegation that it was ancestral qua him, and, therefore, the daughter had no right to inherit the land. It is to solve this dispute that the Plaintiff instituted the present suit for possession as already noted. During the pendency of the suit, however, the mutation was actually sanctioned by the revenue officer in favour of the Plaintiff on the 3rd April, 1958.

(2.) THE pleadings of the parties gave rise to the following two issues:

(3.) NAND Singh went up in appeal but the learned Additional District Judge, Barnala, disallowed the same and confirmed the decree of the Court of first instance. The lower appellate Court began its discussion of the question of the character of land by observing that the certified copy of the Jamabandi for the year 1952 -53 recorded Shrimati Shamo to be the owner of the land in dispute. The learned Judge opined that as the presumption of correctness was attached to this entry, therefore, it was for the Appellant to establish that this entry was untrue. The Court then noticed the argument that Shrimati Shamo could not have been declared the owner of the property because Section 9 of the Pepsu Abolition of Biswedari Ordinance No. 23 of 2006 BK., as amended by Ordinance 36 of 2006 Bk., and Pepsu Act No. IV of 2006 Bk., had been held as illegal and inoperative by the Pepsu High Court in Pirthi Singh and Ors. v. State of Pepsu and Ors., AIR 1953 Pep 161. The contention presumably was that the entry in 1952 -53 must have been made in pursuance of the statutory provision just mentioned and since these provisions were declared bad, the entry in the jamabandi should also be considered to be contrary to law and, therefore, ineffective. The lower appellate Court, however, repelled this contention by observing that the objection raised could have been taken by the landlords in whom the proprietary rights of the land vested and their failure to do so showed that the entry in the jamabandi was accepted by them.