SURJA Vs. THE FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment will dispose of all the three petitions (Civil Writs Nos. 1889 of 1960, 486 of 1961 and 487 of 1961). The facts in Civil Writ 486 of 1961 need only be stated.

(2.) MILAWA Ram, who was the landlord, filed an application under Section 14 -A of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (to be referred to as the Act) seeking ejectment of the Petitioner from land measuring 35 kanals and 2 marlas in village Bhurtana on the ground that he was a small land - owner and the tenant had under his cultivation more than 5 standard acres of land belonging to the other owners. Milawa Ram, landlord had originally been allotted 26 standard acres and 8| units of land and according to what is stated in his petition 57 kanals had been acquired by him by pre -emption.

(3.) NOW , it appears that the Collector as also the Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner followed an earlier decision reported as Shrimati Lal Devi v. Hardit Singh, 1959 L.L.T. 39. There it had been held by the Financial Commissioner that the conversion of land into standard acres "must be at the time it was permanently transferred to the allottee -landowner and not subsequently". A petition under Article 226 of the Constitution had been filed in this Court challenging that decision but the same had been dismissed limine, (Civil Writ No. 735 of 1959). Later on, however, in another petition (Bhagwana v. The Financial Commissioner and Anr. Civil Writ No. 1021 of 1958), which was decided on the merits by S.B. Capoor, J. on 4th September, 1959, the learned Judge after examining all the relevant provisions of the Act gave a decision which Was contrary to what had been held by the Financial Commissioner in Shrimati Lal Debi v. Hardit Singh, 1959 L.L.T. 39. He expressed the view that the permissible area must be reckoned according to the valuation in terms of the standard acres of the land with the land -owner at the time he makes an application for eviction.. Against the order of Capoor J., a Letters Patent appeal was preferred (L.P.A. 290 of 1959), which was dismissed in limine by a Bench of which my Lord the Chief Justice was a member. Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, against the order of dismissal by the Bench was sought under Article 133 of the Constitution but the leave was also not granted. It is mentioned in the order of the Commissioner himself that the aggrieved party -approached the Supreme Court for special leave to appeal but even that permission was not granted. Notwithstanding all this the Commissioner chose to follow the decision of the learned Financial Commissioner in Shrimati Lal Devi v. Hardit Singh, 1959 L.L.T. 39, and not the judgment of S.B. Capoor, J. which should be taken to have been upheld by the Letters Patent Bench and which became final on the point after the dismissal of the application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court as also the application for special leave which had been filed to their Lordships. It is somewhat surprising that the Commissioner was of the view that since the writ petition filed against the decision of the Financial Commissioner in Shrimati Lal Devi v. Hardit Singh, 1959 L.L.T. 39, had been dismissed in limine this Court had made a pronouncement on the correctness or otherwise of that decision. No appeal had been brought to this Court against that decision of the Financial Commissioner and merely because the extra -ordinary powers under Article 226 were invoked it could not possibly be held that the Financial Commissioner's view had received the imprimatur of this Court. The following part of the order of the learned Financial Commissioner may be set out: