RAMU ALIAS RAM KISHAN Vs. DIRECTOR CONSOLIDATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will dispose of two connected civil writ petition Nos. 11812 of 1993 and 13881 of 1993 as common questions of law and fact are involved therein. The facts have, however, been extracted from Civil Writ Petition No. 11812 of 1993 (Ramu @ Ram Kishan and Anr. v. The Director, Consolidation and Ors.)

(2.) RAMU @ Ram Kishan and another through present petition filed by them under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, seek writ in the nature of certiorari so as to quash order dated August 26, 1993, (Annexure P-7) passed by the Director Consolidation, Haryana vide which it was ordered that passage should be given to the owners of every field so that they could do their agricultural occupation easily. However, before giving the passage, spot was ordered to be inspected and the case was remanded to the Settlement Officer (Consolidation), Rohtak with a direction to inspect the spot and after hearing the parties concerned, provide a passage to them. If any land of respondents , petitioners in the present case, was to come within the passage, the land-owner had to be compensated by providing proportionate land of the petitioners.

(3.) THE facts, as have been detailed in the petition, reveal that the parties to the litigation are residents of village Medawas, Tehsil and District Gurgaon. The consolidation in the said village took place in the year 1952-53. At that time no passage was given to any proprietor for his separate holding (Chak ). This course was adopted as the proprietors of the village unanimously decided that they did not like to have passage to their respective fields and would rather prefer to use the boundary (DOLL) of their respective fields for ingress and outgress. In this regard decision was taken which was signed by some of the respectables of the village including Balwant Singh, father of Rishi Parkash and Nandan, who were related to respondent Nos. 5 to 7. A copy of the said decision taken in the year 1952-53 has been placed on the records of this case as Annexure P-1. All the proprietors of the village, thus, started using DOLLS of their respective fields as passage because no passage was separately carved out in the scheme of Consolidation. Respondent Nos. 3 to 10 filed an application under Section 42 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (here-in-after to be referred to as the Act of 1948) before the Director Consolidation, Haryana with a prayer that they may be provided passage to their holding. This petition was filed on February 3, 1993. The Director Consolidation sent the matter to the Consolidation Officer, Gurgaon for ascertaining the entire state of affairs at the spot. In compliance with the directions issued by the Director, Consolidation, Consolidation Officer prepared his report dated May 4, 1993 and submitted it to the Director Consolidation. A copy of the said report has also been placed on the records as Annexure P-3. Relying upon the report aforesaid, the Director Consolidations accepted the petition filed by respondent Nos. 3 to 10 under Section 42 of the Act of 1948 and remanded the case to the Settlement Officer, (Consolidation) ? Gurgaon with the direction as already mentioned in the earlier part of this judgment.