JUG LAL Vs. GRAM PANCHAYAT OF VILLAGE SIWA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this judgment I shall dispose of eight petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India in which the questions requiring determination are identical. They are Civil Writs Nos. 2042, 2516, 2522 to 2526 and 2577 of 1967 and have arisen thus. The Gram Panchayat of Village Siwa situated in Tehsil Panipat, District Karnal, made applications against the petitioners under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation)Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, Panipat, claiming to be put into possession of land held by the petitioners on the ground that it was Shamilat deh which vested in the Panchayat under the Act and whereof the petitioners were in wrongful possession. The applications were accepted by the Assistant Collector against whose order the petitioners went up in appeal to the Collector but remained unsuccessful. They knocked the door of the Commissioner in second appeal but again without success. It was then that they filed the eight petitions under consideration challenging the orders of the Commissioner and his subordinates on various grounds, one of which was that Section 7 of the Act was ultra vires of the Constitution of India. That ground is not pressed before me in view of the dictum of a Division Bench of this Court in Jaimal v. Commr. , Ambala Division, 1969 PLJ 378, rejecting it as untenable.

(2.) THE only ground which Mr. Surinder Sarup, learned counsel for the petitioners, has urged before me is that the impugned orders were passed without jurisdiction and were, therefore, mere nullities in view of he fact that they resulted from proceedings initiated by an institution, namely, the Gram Panchayat of village Siwa, which was neither a natural nor a juristic person. Support for this ground is sought from State of Punjab (now Haryana State) v. Gram Panchayat, Rajipura, 1970 PLJ 752, in which D. K. Mahajan, J. , quoted with approval the following observations made in G. I. P. Rly. Senior Institute v. Mohit Kumar, AIR 1954 Nag 29 :

(3.) IT goes without saying that an application of type envisaged in this section is certainly not a suit as contemplated in the two cases cited above in which the litigation in question consisted of regular suits triable by the Civil Courts and governed by the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure which has no application to disputes of the kind covered by Section 7 of he Act which itself states in unmistakable terms that the Assistant Collector may be moved on an application made by a Panchayat. Clause (e) of Section 2 of the Act defines "panchayat" as meaning a Panchayat constituted or continued under the Punjab Gram Panchayat Act. 1952 etc. it is not denied that the Gram Panchayat of village Siwa in such a Panchayat. And if that be so, no exception can at all be taken to the competence of the Panchayat to make applications under Section 7 of the Act and to be a party to th proceedings culminating in the impugned orders. The mere fact that the Panchayat is neither a natural nor a juristic person, does not affect the impugned orders, when the Act clothes it with the necessary authority.