SAMADH BAWA MARU DASSU Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts are not in serious dispute. The petitioner Smadh Bawa Maru Dass is the landowner whilst respondent No. 3 Bhagat Singh is the tenant. The petitioner moved an application under Section 14-A(i) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act for the ejectment of Bhagat Singh, respondent, from land measuring 46 Kanals 16 Marlas situated in village Daulatpur before the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, Jullundur. The respondent-tenant took up the plea that he had made payment in respect of all the crops and had been doing so regularly. Whilst these proceedings were still pending, respondent No. 3 moved an application under Section 18 of the Act for purchasing the land comprising in his tenancy claiming that he had been a tenant for nearly 20 years and that the petitioner landowner was a big landowner. The Financial Commissioner noticed that both these applications were at one stage pending in the Court of the same Assistant Collector but somehow one of the application was transferred to another Assistant Collector. The Commissioner also noticed that the respondent-tenant had agitated before the Assistant Collector during the ejectment proceedings that both the applications should be taken together. Vide annexure R-2 to the written statement filed by the respondent it is further evident that Bhagat Singh tenant had even moved an application in the Court of the Collector, Jullundur, praying that the application for ejectment and the application for the purchase of the land which had been got separated should be consolidated in one Court and be decided at one and the same time. However, it has been averred that this application was rejected. On the 20th of May, 1968, that is, nearly after a period of two months from the filing of the application for purchase, the application for ejectment by the landlord was granted by the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade on the finding that the respondent-tenant had defaulted in the payment of rent. An appeal was carried to the Collector who, however, declined to intervene. The respondent tenant then went up in revision to the Commissioner, Jullundur Division, who made a recommendation to the Financial Commissioner that the order of ejectment passed in favour of the landlord be set aside and both the proceedings under Sections 14 and 18 of the Act should be consolidated and be decided simultaneously. By the impugned order, annexure 'D' dated the 17th of November, 1971, the Financial Commissioner accepted the recommendation and set aside the order of the ejectment and directed that both the ejectment application and the application for purchase under Section 18 of the landlord and tenant respectively should be decided by the same Court at the same time on merits. The petitioner-landlord has now come up by way of this writ petition.

(2.) The primary argument of Mr. J.V. Gupta in support of this petition is that the application under Section 14 of the Act for ejectment and the other application of tenant under Section 18 of the Act for purchase of the land are both separate and independent proceedings. Counsel vehemently contends that these being separate and having been filed at different points of time, even though in the same Court, can be and should be decided independently of each other. It was contended that on the facts of the present case the landlord's application for ejectment under Section 14 has been rightly decided independently.

(3.) The contention of the learned counsel is patently untenable both on principle and authority. Because the matter is so well covered by a consistent string of decisions against the petitioner, it is unnecessary to examine the issue on principle. As early as 1964 the Financial Commissioner in Kamal Dev v. Maman and others,1964 LLT 36 categorically took the view in the following terms :-