S HARDAM SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Do the regulatory provisions of the Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act, 1975, directed against the mushroom rise of slums and the haphazard and ill-planned growth of urban and suburban areas violate the erstwhile fundamental right to property under Article 19(1)(f) 31 or the equality clause of Article 14, is the primary, if not the sole, question which falls for adjudication in this set of nine writ-petitions.

(2.) The issues of law as also of fact being admittedly common, this judgment will govern all these writ petitions. The factual matrix necessary for the determination of the legal issue may be picked from Civil Writ Petition No. 785 of 1980(Hardam Singh v. State of Punjab petitioner No. 2 therein being the owner of agricultural land situated in village Naranjanpura, Tehsil Patiala, sold the same through petitioner No. 1, her Attorney, the five pieces by registered sale-deeds on the 6th of January, 1976. It is the petitioner's stand that the aforesaid sales were not intended to set up a residential or commercial colony. However, a communication was addressed to Patiala, on behalf of the Housing Development and Urban Estates, Punjab, alleging that the petitioner had sold her parental land in five or more than five plots for residential, commercial, industrial or other purposes and construction had been commenced thereon in violation of Sections 2(e), 3(1), 4(2) and 8(1) of the Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act 1975(hereinafter called the Act). Therein it was further alleged that this constituted a cognisable offence and it was requested that a case be registered in the police station against Harbhajan Kaur petitioner No. 2 and her husband Shri Hardam Singh petitioner No. 1, for the violation of the Act. In pursuance thereto, a case was apparently registered at Police Station, Kotwali, Patiala, Later on, a complaint was filed in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Patiala.

(3.) The writ-petitioners assailed the constitutionality of Ss. 3(1), 8(1) and 11(1) of the Act as being violative of Articles 14 and 19(1)(f) and (g). The basic stance taken is that the definition of the 'colony' in the Act is almost similar to the definition of the 'colony' given in the Haryana Restriction on (Development and Regulation of) Colonies Act of 1971, which was struck down by the Division Bench in Jai Chand Bhagat v. State of Haryana, (1975) 77 Pun LR 277. Therein, it was held that since the Haryana Act rested primarily on the definition of the 'colony', the whole of the statute was ultra vires of the Constitution. It is pointed out that the provisions under the present Act were also challenged by a number of writ petitions in 1975. But, due to the declaration of the Emergency and the suspension of Fundamental Rights, the question had remained undecided.