PAWAN KUMAR PURI Vs. THE IMPROVEMENT TRUST, BATALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is plaintiffs' appeal filed under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, challenging the judgment of the District Judge, Gurdaspur, who has dismissed the suit of the plaintiffs while accepting the appeal of the defendant-respondent Improvement Trust, Batala.

(2.) FACTS in brief are that Madan Lal father of the plaintiff-appellants was owner of 7 kanal 7 marla of land which was acquired by the defendant- respondent Trust in the year 1975. The Trust was to execute a scheme known as Shastri Nagar Scheme for establishing residential-cum-commercial colony. The award was announced on 18.8.1982. No allotment of plot was made to the plaintiff-appellants or their father who was the owner of the acquired land on the ground that they or their father was a 'Local Displaced Persons' under the rules known as Utilisation of Land and Allotment of Plots by Improvement Trust Rules, 1975 (for brevity 1975 Rules). However, first time the application was filed by the Plaintiff-appellants on 3.3.1992 asserting their right of allotment of a plot as a Local Displaced Person. The application could not be considered because according to the defendant-respondent the right under 1975 rules stood extinguished. The defendant-respondent further asserted that the new Rules known as Punjab Town Improvement (Utilisation of Land and Allotment of Plots) Rules, 1983 (for brevity of 1983 Rules), had comes into existence and the 1975 Rules were repealed. Under the new rules the filing of the application and deposit of some amount as Local Displaced Person was made mandatory. The application is also required to be filed according to Rule 4(2) of the 1983 Rules within a period of three years. Rule 11(4) also deals with those applications which were pending belonging to the cases, in which the land had been acquired earlier to the enforcement of 1983 rules.

(3.) THE learned District Judge also found that the judgments in the case of Jagdish Rai (supra) and Purshotam Dass (supra) were inapplicable because there was no delay either in filing of application along with adequate deposit in those cases.