MALLU Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petition is a challenge to the order passed by the Financial Commissioner exercising the powers under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. The petitioner was a category 'A' tenant who had exercised his right of reservation in respect of the properties held by him as a tenant of 31 bighas of land. In the consolidation, the properties of value and quality equivalent to the properties that were permitted to be retained by him were 197 kanals 10 marlas of land. However in the actual allotment brought through records, he was purported to have been allotted only 155 kanals. The private respondents had been allotted the remaining extent of properties which the petitioner claimed as the property that should be allowed to him. This appeal to the Collector for allotment which fell deficient to him came to be made nearly 5 years after the allotment. The Collector had called for a report from the Naib Tehsildar about the petitioner's entitlement and brought to his file his report that stated that the properties in Khasra Nos.22//21, 44//1, 12/1, 20; 42//16, 24 measuring 42 kanals and 10 marlas had not actually been allotted to him though he was entitled to the same. The Collector passed an order on 10.08.1982 directing the matter to be considered again and remitted the matter to the allotment authority. This order was challenged before the Commissioner by the private respondents, aggrieved, as they were, by the possibility of the allotting authority cancelling the allotment made to them and allow the same to the petitioners. They also pointed out to the fact that they had themselves been not made parties and the appeal filed by the petitioner before the Collector was also belated, far beyond the period of limitation, which was permissible under the relevant rules. The objections of the private respondents prevailed before the Commissioner and he quashed the order of the Collector. This order of the Commissioner is in challenge before this court.

(2.) IT must be noticed immediately that the Commissioner has not at any place stated that the report of the Naib Tehsildar was erroneous or that the petitioner could not have been allotted the properties which were identified in the report as properties that should have been allotted to the petitioner. On the other hand, the issue taken up for an adjudication before the Commissioner was only on the point of limitation that the petitioner had not preferred the appeal within the prescribed time and that too, the private respondents, who had been favoured with allotment of the properties claimed by the petitioner had not been made as parties. The petitioner's contention would be that he had moved an application for condonation of delay with an affidavit and this is stoutly contested by the respondents.

(3.) IT may seem in the ultimate bargain that the private respondents had done no wrong but they are being made to lose the properties which were originally allotted. Their own rights cannot be better than what the State had. If the State could not have denied to the petitioner his entitlement in his capacity as an erstwhile tenant, who had a right to exercise his option declaring his permissible area, then the benefit to the respondents cannot be at the expense of the petitioner. The petitioner shall have what he was legally entitled to. The Collector's order did not actually conclude the issue of what exactly the property shall be. The Collector's order only directed the allotment authority to consider his pleas and pass appropriate orders after giving notice to all the parties. The Collector's order was perfectly justified and the intervention made by the Commissioner was not proper.