MAHABIR PARSHAD Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will dispose of a bunch of five writ petitions, namely, Nos. 909, 910, 962, 963 and 964 of 1967. The petitioner is the same person in all the five cases. In the first three, the facts are exactly identical (excepting the parcels of land and the names of the tenant-respondents). In the last mentioned two cases, additional points also arise.

(2.) The basic facts being common, it will be appropriate to take Civil Writ 909 of 1967 as the model. The land in dispute is situate in the area of village Ellenabad, Tehsil Sirsa, District Hissar. On 4.4.1961, the tenant-respondent, Lachhu in this case, made an application under Section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (hereinafter called 'the Act') for the purchase of the land in his tenancy, measuring 31 Bighas, bearing Khasra No. 150 min, Khewat/Khatauni No. 175/164. The land belonged to Smt. Goran, widow of Ram Sarup Dass, original landowner. In 1949, she adopted the petitioner, Mahabir Parshad, as a son, who was a minor at that time. In 1951, Smt. Goran died and thereupon the collaterals refused to recognise the petitioner as her validly adopted son and got the land mutated in their own names. The petitioner then instituted a suit for a declaration that he was the validly adopted son of Smt. Goran and, as such, was entitled to inherit her estate to the entire exclusion of her husband's collaterals. He also went in appeal before the Collector against the order of the Tehsildar, by which the land had been mutated in favour of the collaterals. The Collector, while setting aside the mutation, ordered that the estate of Smt. Goran be mutated only after the dispute about the adoption of the petitioner bad been decided by the Civil Court. The result was that the name of Smt. Goran continued to appear in the ownership column of the revenue records. Madan Gopal, however, had entered into hostile possession of the land in 1951 on Smt. Goran's death. The petitioner, was not shown in possession of any part of the estate of Smt. Goran. This was the situation when the Act came into force on 15-4-1953. The long drawn out litigation, however, terminated in favour of Mahabir Parshad petitioner when on 14.1.1960, the High Court in second appeal, decreed his suit and declared him as the validly adopted son of Smt. Goran. As a result, the entire landed estate of the deceased was mutated in favour of the petitioner on 13.2.1960.

(3.) On 18.6.1958, however, the petitioner, though he was not in possession of any part of the landed estate of Smt. Goran, as a matter of abundant caution, made the selection of the permissible area for his cultivation. (This selection, according to the amendment of the Act - which took effect from 20.12.1957- could be made upto 22.9.1958). The area now claimed by the tenant-respondent was included in that selection. On 25.3.1963, the Surplus Area Collector, acting under the provisions of the Act, declared 60 ordinary acres as the petitioner's surplus area as per Form 'E' put in by the petitioner containing his selection. (This order is on the file of the Collector, out of which these proceedings have arisen).