CHINKO BAI Vs. HAMIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The following substantial questions of law arise for consideration in the second appeal:-

(2.) The plaintiffs' suit is for a declaration that they are the owners of the suit property and for an injunction against the defendants from interfering with their possession. The defendants were persons claiming under orders passed by the Prescribed Authority under the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act which purported to recognize the defendants' rights as allottees of the properties as persons, who had previously held the property on lease from the big land owner Manohar Lal. The proceedings of the authority followed an earlier declaration made under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act on 25.11.1978 that the holding of Manohar Lal was attracted to the provisions of the Act and that the suit properties had been declared as falling with the surplus area. The trial Court and the Appellate Court dismissed plaintiffs' suit and the second appeal is brought at the instance of the plaintiffs on a plea that the plaintiffs' title to the property was not traced through Manohar Lal, their father but they had themselves secured title to the property through a decree that was passed on 17.06.1958, that is, the date before the cut off date prescribed as 30.07.1958 under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. The plaintiffs' contention was that the proceedings of the Prescribed Authority had been passed without any notice to them and behind their back and that in any event, the decision cannot bind them, for, they are owners in their right and mutations had also been effected pursuant to the decree passed on 17.06.1958, as the relevant entries in the jamabandi would show.

(3.) The trial Court held, inter alia, that the plaintiffs' entitlement to the property under the decree had not even been established, for, the properties in suit had not correlated to the properties that were in the decree. Even at the trial Court, the plaintiffs had filed the certified copies of documents along with an application under Order 18 Rule 17 CPC but the trial Court had not received the same as a deliberate ploy to delay the proceedings. This order was also a subject of challenge in appeal and the Appellate Court had also rejected the documents.