DEEP CHAND AND ANOTHER Vs. ADDITIONAL DIRECTOR, CONSOLIDATION OF HOLDINGS, PUNJAB, JULLUNDUR, AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case we are called upon to answer the following question :

(2.) REFERENCE to a Bench of five Judges has been necessitated by the fact that doubt was entertained about the correctness of some of the observations contained in Jagir Singh etc. v. The Settlement Commissioner etc, (1959) 61 P.L.R. 480 (F.B.) a decision by a Bench of three Judges of this Court.

(3.) UTTAM Singh's case(supra) is a Division Bench decision by Bhandari' C. J. and Falshaw J. (as he then was) on Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment of Mehar Singh J. In that case during the course of consolidation proceedings a plot of land was allotted to three persons Ujagar, Raja & Kushia while two plots were allotted to Uttam Singh, Uttam Singh objected to this allotment as his land had been split up into two portions but his objections were overruled by the Consolidation Officer. On appeal by him, the Settlement Officer directed variation in the land allotted to Ujagar, Raja & Kushia who thereupon preferred an appeal to the Additional Assistant Director but without success, considering themselves aggrieved, they presented two applications to the Minister, Consolidation of Holdings, who forwarded one of them to the Director retaining the other with himself; he also sent for the records. When the Minister visited Hoshiarpur in November, 1957, he afforded a hearing to the landowners concerned in the presence of the Director; On 3rd December, 1957, he forwarded the second application also to the Director asking him to dispose it of under section 42 of the Consolidation Act after affording the parties concerned an opportunity of hearing. In the result both the applications presented by the said three persons were with the Director in December, 1957. On 26th March, 1958 he dismissed the first application forwarded to him by the Minister by a short order. Later he summoned the parties and after hearing them he set aside the order of the Additional Assistant Director under section 42 and restored that of the Consolidation Officer with, inter alia, the following observations :