SAMPURAN SINGH Vs. THE STATE AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution and is directed against the order of the Pepsu Land Commission dated the 17th October, 1961, and of the Collector dated the 25th January, 1960. In order to appreciate the grievance of the petitioner, it will be necessary to set out the facts briefly.

(2.) ACCORDING to him, the petitioner formed a joint Hindu family with his two sons. There was a partition between the father and the sons with the result that no area beyond the permissible limit was left with the father or with either of the sons. In this view of the matter, the petitioner did not file any return under section 32 -B of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 (No. 13 of 1955) hereinafter referred to as the Act. The Collector proceeded to determine the area of the petitioner as surplus under section 32 -C on the ground that in the case of a joint Hindu family the family has to be treated as one unit and the partition has to be ignored. In the proceedings that were taken under section 32 -C, a claim was made under section 82 -K(1) (iv) for excluding 10 pukhta Bighas of land out of the permissible limit on the ground that it was an efficiently managed farm which satisfied the various requirements of clause (iv), sub -section (1) of section 32 -K. The Collector refused to determine this matter. An appeal was taken to the Commissioner but without success and a revision to the financial Commissioner was thrown out as incompetent. Having failed to achieve any redress, the petitioner moved the Pepsu Land Commission and asked them to advise the State Government with regard to the exemption claimed under section 32 -K. The Commission dismissed the application on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to entertain it. It is against this decision and against the decision of Collector and the authorities which have dismissed the appeal and the revision of the petitioner that the present petition is directed. The contention of the petitioner is that as soon as he made the claim before the Collector in proceedings under section 32 -C with regard to an exemption under section 32 -K, the Collector was bound to seek the advice of the Commission. He even goes further and maintains that the Commission was bound, when approached, to tender its advice at the instance of the petitioner. Before, examining the validity of these contentions, it will be proper to go into the scheme of the Act pertaining to the ceiling on the land. This matter is dealt with in Chapter IV -A of the Act. Section 32 -A provides that no person can own or possess land more than the permissible limit. The permissible limit is 30 standard acres or 80 ordinary acres in the case of persons who are not displaced from West Pakistan but it is 40 standard acres or 100 ordinary acres in the case of displaced persons.

(3.) THE short question that arises for determination is: What is the significance of the words "exemption from ceiling if claimed by the landowner under section 32 D(2)"? If reference is made to section 32 -D, it does require the landowner to make a claim with regard to exemption from ceiling under the provisions of this Chapter. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that "if claimed by the landowner is an expression wide enough to include claim made at any time before the Collector because it is the collector who, in the first instance, has to consider the claim made under section 32 -D. If I were to accept the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner then section 32 -B would become redundant because it provides that a claim has to be made within one month from the specified date under that section, that is, the commencement of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Amendment) Ordinance, 1958. This ordinance came into force on the 30th July, 1958. It is no doubt true that in the present case the claim under section 32 -K was made by the landowner when the Collector was determining the permissible area to be retained by the landowner under section 32 -C, and it is also of significance that before the Act was amended in 1962, as held by this Court, the Joint Hindu family could not be treated as one unit and in that state of law in view of the family partition, the petitioner was not required to submit his return under section 32 -B because he admittedly did not own land more than the permissible area. As in the case of determination of surplus area under section 32 -C, there seems to be no corresponding provision with regard to the determination of exemption under section 32 -K. The legislation is more or less in the nature of confiscatory legislation and the matter is not free from difficulty and would be arising frequently. It would, therefore, be proper that this petition is settled by a larger Bench because I am inclined to the view that the words "If claimed by the landowner" in section 32 -D are wide enough to include a claim made at any time before the draft statement. This construction I am particularly adopting because wherever the Legislature wanted to restrict the right given by the previous section, that section was specifically mentioned in the restrictive provision. I, therefore, direct that the pipers of this case be laid before my Lord the Chief Justice for constituting a larger Bench to decide this matter.