DALIP KAUR Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This civil writ petition has been filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India to call in question the orders of the State of Punjab and its Revenue Officers, respondent Nos. 1 to 3, declaring a part of the petitioner's holding as surplus area under the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 (hereinafter briefly referred to as the Act).

(2.) The petitioner owned land in villages Dehliz Khurd, Sadrabad alias Dushere, Uppal Kheri and Kup Kalan, in Malerkotla, district Sangrur. She had sold her entire land in the villages of Kup Kalan and Dehliz Khurd, and a part of her land in Sadrabad, but still she was served with draft statements showing that 41 Standard Acres and 15-3/4 Units of her land were surplus area. The Special Collector respondent No. 2 ultimately declared 19.15 Standard Acres of petitioner's land as surplus area in the villages of Dehliz Khurd, Sadrabad and Uppal Kheri. The land owned by the petitioner was variously categorised an Niain Chahi, Khalis Chahi, Rausli, Bhud, Dakar, Banjar, Ghair Mumkin, etc. Land revenue was being assessed on these different categories of land, more or less by way of rent, as a share of the gross produce, according to certain instructions issued by Messrs Robertson and I.C. Lal. Extracts from those instructions have been given as Annexure 'C' to the writ petition. The land revenue assessed on Niain Chahi was invariably at double or triple of the rate fixed for Khalis Chahi lands. These proportions or relative values of such categories of land, had, however, been ignored by the respondents while framing the valuation statements under rule 5 of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Rules, 1958 (hereinafter called the Rules), for the purpose of conversion of ordinary acres into Standard Acres. Such valuation statements prepared in respect of Sangrur district, had been declared as ultra vires by a Single Bench of this Court in Waryam Singh v. The Collector (Agrarian Reforms), Sangrur, etc., 1964 CurLJ 1(Punjab) , and this ruling had led to the substitution of revised valuation statements in the area by the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Second Amendment) Rules, 1964. Whereas under the original valuation statements no distinction had been made between the Niain Chahi and Khalis Chahi lands, the revised valuation statements had fixed the valuation of Niain Chahi at 106 while that of Khalis Chahi at 100 only. These valuations had not taken into consideration the actual relative values of the two types of Chahi lands, and the revised valuation statements were also described to be repugnant to or ultra vires of the definition of 'Standard Acre' as contained in clause (i) of Section 2 of the Act. The defects pointed out in the valuation statements by the Single Bench decision of this Court in Waryam Singh's case had not been remedied or removed by the amendment that had followed as a consequence of that ruling, and the declaration of the petitioner's surplus area according to these defective valuation statements was described to be illegal and without jurisdiction.

(3.) It is contended by Shri Atma Ram, learned counsel for the petitioner, that the Punjab Government should have made a distinction between the Niain Chahi and Khalis Chahi lands on the basis of actual quality and yield as contemplated by the Act, and that the revised valuation statements as well as the declaration of petitioner's surplus land on the basis of these defective valuation statements should be struck down.