GYANI TARA SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FIFTEENTH August, 1947, found the Indian Nation in a grateful and expansive mood towards the valiant freedom fighters whose boundless sufferings and sacrifices during the freedom struggle against the foreign rule in no small measure made it possible for the nation to breathe in freedom that day. Being a matter of recent history, one might recall the diverse ways in which their sacrifices and sufferings were accorded public recognition. Such of them who were found in indigent circumstances were given monthly pensions, money and land grant in order to, in some measure alleviate their sufferings and ameliorate their living conditions. (See paragraph 60 of the amended writ petition ). It was in pursuance of such a policy, so allege the petitioners, that the erstwhile State of Punjab in the year 1955 made grants of rent free lease of 121/2 acres each of the Government land, mostly, virgin, full of wild growth and uncultivated, in Hissar 'bir' in District hissar (now forming part of Haryana State) to some of the political suffers including the petitioners 1 to 4 and the members of Union (Political Sufferers' union, Hissar, Petitioner No. 5) under the Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912, (hereinafter referred to as the Colonization Act ). The said lease grants, which were subject tot he conditions of the lease deeds (Annexure 'b") and the relevant provisions of the Colonization Act, were to enure only for a period of 20 years. It is noteworthy that one of the conditions of the said lease deeds required the lease-holders to bring the land so allotted to them under cultivation within a specified period and also construct houses and settle down on the land reserved for abadi for the period of the lease.

(2.) THE breaking of the virgin land in order to make it culturable no doubt must have entailed considerable investment both of labour and money. The spectre of the expiration of their lease period must no doubt as alleged, have goaded the said leaseholders to press upon the Government to convert their lease-grant rights into proprietary ones. By 1966 more than half the period of the lease having expired, it must have increased their clamour for the grants of proprietary rights to such a volume and intensity as to bring the Government of erstwhile Punjab round to their views. At the relevant time Comrade Ram Kishan, himself a freedom fighter, headed the Punjab Ministry. His Government agreed to confer on the leaseholders the proprietary right in their respective leasehold plots without any consideration but before something concrete could be done in this respect, the government had a second thought and decided to charge Rupees 500-/ per acre in lieu of grant of such proprietary rights. This order is Annexure 'd' and it is desirable to reproduce it in its entirety:--

(3.) BEFORE the Deputy Commissioner, Hissar, could initiate action in pursuance of this order, new State of Haryana came into being on November 1, 1966, as a result of the re-organisation of erstwhile State of Punjab.