PARAMJIT KAUR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHETHER the wife is entitled to be heard during the course of proceedings for determination of the surplus area when her husband as a member of the family had furnished the declaration under Section 9(1) of the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972 (for short the Act) including therein the land held by other members of the family, is the short question which arises for determination in this bunch of four Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 2293, 3972 of 1981, 820 of 1983 and 15716 of 1991. Two of these writ petitions pertain to the State of Punjab where surplus area was declared under the provisions of the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972. Counsel for the parties are agreed that the provisions of the two Acts are analogous and that the answer to the aforesaid question will equally apply to the cases arising under the Punjab Act. For the sake of convenience the facts are being taken from Civil Writ Petition No. 2293 of 1981 in which the main arguments were addressed.

(2.) RULIA Singh was a big landowner of village Tatiana, Tehsil' Guhla, Distt. Kurukshetra. He furnished a declaration to the prescribed Authority under Section 9(1) of the Act giving the particulars of all his land and that of his adult son. He included in the declaration the land owned by his two wives as well including the petitioner herein. The Sub Divisional Officer-cum- Collector (Agrarian) by his order dated 29.9.1980 allowed to the landowner one primary unit and one separate unit and after excluding 861 kanals 18 marlas of land which was permissible by law, declared 311 kanals 12 marlas of land as surplus in his hands. It may be mentioned that the landowner claimed only two units of land, one for the family on whose behalf he had filed the return and the other for his adult son. Feeling aggrieved by this order, Rulia Singh, landowner, filed an appeal before the Collector who by his order dated 29.12.1980 dismissed the same. It was argued before the Appellate Authority that the landowner had sold 56 kanals of land on 4.8.1978 to one Harnek Singh son of Sampuran Singh on account of his personal necessity and, therefore, this sale being bonafide should have been accepted as valid and the land sold should have been taken out from his land while determining the surplus area. This contention was negatived by the Collector. It was thereafter that the petitioner who is the wife of Rulia Singh filed the present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging the order of the Prescribed Authority and that of the Collector whereby surplus area had been declared in the hands of her husband on the ground that she was not afforded an opportunity of hearing during the course of the surplus area proceedings. It is alleged that Rulia Singh had erroneously shown the land of the petitioner as owned by him and included the same in the declaration furnished under Section 9(1) of the Act and that she was entitled to be heard by the Prescribed Authority before the surplus area was declared in the hands of Rulia Singh. Reliance in this regard has been placed on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Angrez Kaur v. State of Punjab and another, 1983 PLJ 361 : 1984 R.R.R. 458.

(3.) BEFORE I deal with the rival contentions of the parties, it is necessary to refer to some of the provisions of the Act which are relevant for our purpose. The Act was enacted with a view to consolidate and amend the law relating to ceiling on land holdings in the State of Haryana and to give effect to the policy of the State towards securing the principles specified in clauses (b) and (c) of Article 39 of the Constitution. The term 'family' has been defined in clause (f) of section 3 of the Act to mean, husband, wife and their minor children or any two or more of them. Clause (m) of section 3 defines a 'person' to include a company, family, association or other body of individuals whether incorporated or not and any institution capable of holding property. 'Separate unit' has been defined in clause (q) of Section 3 of the Act and means, an adult son living with his parents or either of them and in case of his death, his widow and children, if any. Section 4 of the Act defines what 'permissible area' is of a person or family consisting of husband, wife and up to three minor children. Section 7 of the Act mandates that no person shall be entitled to hold whether as landowner or tenant or as a mortgagee with possession or partly in one capacity or partly in another, land within the State of Haryana exceeding the permissible area on or after the appointed day which is the 24th day of January, 1971. The Explanation to this Section is relevant and the same reads as under :- Explanation - Where the person is a family including the separate unit, if any, the land owned or held by such person together with the land owned or held by the members of the family and the separate unit shall be taken into account for the purposes of calculating the permissible area." Section 9 of the Act deals with selection of permissible area and requires persons to furnish declaration in the prescribed form and it reads as under :-