SHIVDEV SINGH Vs. CHIEF SETTLEMENT COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed by a displaced person from West Pakistan, who owned agricultural lands in Sindh and Punjab (Pakistan). He had filed a claim in respect of these lands and had been allotted evacuee lands by the Rehabilitation authorities. Proprietary rights had already been conferred on him in due course. When the revenue records were received from Pakistan, it was found that there were no entries with regard to the land in Sindh which the petitioner claimed to have purchased by registered deeds in 1945, that is to say, about two years before the partition of the country. The Settlement Commissioner, respondent No. 2, therefore, recommended to the Chief Settlement Commissioner, respondent No. 1, by his order of reference (Annexure 'A') that a part of the area allotted to the petitioner should be withdrawn and the proprietary rights conferred therein may be cancelled. This recommendation was accepted by respondent No. 1 by his impugned order (Annexure 'B').

(2.) The matter is now fully covered by a Division Bench ruling of this Court in Teja Singh v. Union of India and others, 1971 AIR(P&H) 96. There is no evidence that after the purchase of the land in 1945, the petitioner had transferred the property further to anyone. This surmise, which has been described by respondent No. 2 as a safe presumption in his order of reference (Annexure 'A') is at the most an inference based on no cogent material. The genuineness of the registered sale deeds relied upon by the petitioner has not been disputed by the respondents. The Revenue authorities prepare the records of rights for fiscal purposes to suit their own convenience. There is nothing in law which makes it incumbent on the purchaser of agricultural land to report the transaction to the Revenue authorities when he has authentic documentary proof about his title in the shape of registered deeds. A mutation of entries in the records of rights is not supposed to confer any title. If the petitioner had made any further transfers of the land and the revenue records were being kept up to date, then one might have expected hat there would be entries, in the Jamabandis or the Register of Mutations not only about the purchase of the land by the petitioner but also of the transfers made by him.

(3.) The Division Bench ruling in Teja Singh's case being fully applicable, I grant the writ petition but leave the parties to bear their own costs. The impugned orders (Annexures 'A' and 'B') passed by the respondents are quashed.