RANBIR SINGH Vs. RATTAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The limited challenge to the judgment of the learned single Judge which is common to all the three L.P.As No. 259, 260 and 261 of 1978 is as to whether the finding of fact that the petitioners before him were bona fide purchasers for consideration of the land in dispute ought to have been given by the learned single Judge when such an assertion in the writ petition had been specifically controverted by the appellants herein (who were respondents to the writ petitions).

(2.) For appreciating and finally determining the aforesaid proposition, a detailed survey of facts is not necessary. Suffice it to say that the land in dispute which was evacuee land in the first instance was allotted to the appellants. It came to be acquired along with some other by the Government but since the Government did not need the whole of the land so acquired part of it including the land in dispute herein was then released in favour of the Custodian. The land in dispute so released instead of being reallotted to the appellants to whom it had been earlier allotted somehow came to be allotted to one Labh Singh who later on effected sale to the petitioners to the writ petition from time to time. The appellants had been agitating the matter before the rehabilitation authorities against the allotment of the said land to Labh Singh and eventually succeeded in getting the allotment in favour of Labh Singh cancelled by the Chief Settlement Commissioner under Section 24 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation & Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) vide his order dated 11th July, 1968. The petitioners-purchasers from Labh Singh challenged that order through three separate writ petitions No. 2488, 2678 and 3045 of 1965 in this Court which were disposed of by a common judgment by the learned single Judge holding that although order of the Chief Settlement Commissioner cancelling the allotment in favour of Labh Singh was valid and legal but the petitioners having purchased the land from Labh Singh for consideration and in a bona fide manner cannot be dispossessed of the said land and accepted the petitions.

(3.) While application of the principles enshrined in Section 41 of the transfer of Property Act to the cases of the purchasers falling in the categories of the writ petitioners is no longer in doubt as there are series of judgments of this Court holding that the Union of India in which the property after cancellation of the order of allotment vests back cannot dispossess a bona fide purchaser of that land or property for consideration from the ostensible owner thereof i.e. the final allottee thereof, it is however, a moot point whether this Court while exercising certiorari writ jurisdiction should take upon itself the responsibility of trying the contentious questions of fact.