BALJEET SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ACCORDING to the first information report No. 140 dated 10-10-1988 registered at Police Station Radaur, the District Town Planner, Kurukshetra, informed the police that the petitioners were joint owners of agricultural land measuring 1135 square metres equivalent to 1350 sq yards and they sold the said land, for the purpose of being made into plots for residential purposes in contravention of the provisions of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975 (hereinafter referred to as the Act and therefore, sought their prosecution for an offence under Section 10 of the Act. In this petition, the petitioners have sought quashing of the said first information report on the ground that they have jointly sold their land and the share of each of them in the said land comes to less than 1000 metres and, the case is covered by definition of colony in Section 2 (c) of the Act. This provision reads as under :-

(2.) THE contention of the learned Assistant Advocate General, Haryana, who appeared for the respondent, is that it cannot be said that the petitioners were owners of the disputed land to the extent of 1/2 each and, therefore, the contention of the petitioners to wriggle out of their liability is untenable. While it is true that there is no material on the record to support the petitioners contention that they are owners to the extent of one-half each in the disputed land, yet the presumption has necessarily to be drawn in their favour, viz, that they are owners in equal shares because the respondent has not been able to show that their shares are so specified that it negatives the petitioners contention regarding their ownership to the extent of one-half each. Viewed in this perspective, an inference has to be drawn in favour of the petitioners that they had individually sold less than 1,000 sq. metres.

(3.) FOR the reasons recorded above, this petition, is allowed and the first information report in question and the subsequent proceedings initiated on that report are quashed. petition allowed.