BISHAN SINGH Vs. CHIEF SETTLEMENT COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will dispose of L.P.A. 35 of 1971 and Civil Writ No. 3223 of 1968 (Sher Singh etc., V. Chief Settlement Commissioner etc.) because the main point involved is common.

(2.) L.P.A. 35 of 1971, which is directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge, dismissing Civil Writ No. 906 of 1969, filed by the appellants before us, raises an important point of law which has arisen in a number of other cases. In order to give an opportunity to the counsel appearing in similar cases to make their submissions in this matter, this appeal was heard alongwith a large number of other writ petitions, the facts in which were not similar but in which the point that has arisen in this appeal was also of some application. For deciding the law point, it is enough to deal with the facts in the appeal, and the other cases will be disposed of separately.

(3.) The appellants (hereinafter referred to as the petitioners) migrated from West Pakistan as a result of the partition of the country. According to their allegations, they settled in village Waghke in tehsil and district Ferozepore and occupied some Banjar evacuee agricultural land, including the land in dispute measuring 24.4-1/2 standard acres, detailed in paragraph 2 of the writ petition. According to them, they had been paying full lease money for the aforesaid area first to the Custodian, then to the Central Government and then again to the State Government after the surplus unallotted evacuee agricultural land had been transfered to the Punjab Government by what is known as 'Package Deal'. Thus, they had been in occupation of the land in dispute for nearly 15 years.