GURDIAL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) An area of 15 standard acres 11-1/4 units out of the petitioner's holding was declared surplus as the petitioner held 47 acres and 7-4/3 units of land. For the purposes of assessing the surplus area of the petitioner the land which he held on the date of the commencement of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 i.e. on the 15th April, 1953 was taken into account. It appears that after that day, i.e. after the 15th April, 1953, the petitioner had mortgaged a part of his holding in June 1958. The petitioner claimed that the mortgaged land should have been excluded from his holdings for the determination of the surplus area. The petitioner preferred an appeal against the order declaring the surplus area before the Commissioner which was disposed of by an order of Shri Damodar Dass, Additional Commissioner, Jullundur Division, dated the 1st June, 1963 of which Annexure 'A' to the writ petition is a copy. From the said order it appears that the only point pressed before the Additional Commissioner on behalf of the petitioner was that he might be allowed to slightly revise his selection. This was allowed in his favour and it is specifically stated in the said order that no other point was pressed by the petitioner before the Additional Commissioner. Not satisfied with the appellate order the petitioner is stated to have approached the Financial Commissioner, Punjab, on the revisional side under Section 24 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, read with Section 84 of the Punjab Tenancy Act (16 of 1887). Section 84 of the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 reads as follows :-

(2.) According to the petitioner, the revision petition was filed by him on the 9th October, 1961. This was deficiently stamped. The petition was returned for making up the deficiency in Court Fees as also for attaching certain certified copies which were required by the Financial Commissioner. According to the written statement filed in this case the revision petition was returned for the filing of copies etc. on the 11th October, 1963 but the petitioner proceeded to apply for the requisite copy of the order of the Collector only on the 25th March, 1964, i.e. 166 days after the case was returned to him and the copies were supplied on the 4th April, 1964. When the case came up for hearing before Shri Saroop Krishan, Financial Commissioner, Planning. Punjab, he declined to interfere in exercise of his revisional jurisdiction by his Order dated the 25th April, 1964 of which Annexure 'B' to the writ petition is a copy on the ground that the time taken by the petitioner far exceeded the normal period of 90 days during which petitions for revision were being entertained and that no ground had been made out by the petitioner before the Financial Commissioner for the delay being condoned. It is this order of the learned Financial Commissioner, which has been impugned in the instant case.

(3.) It is not disputed by the learned counsel for the petitioner, nor can it be disputed that it is the pure discretion of the Financial Commissioner to call for the records of a case to exercise his reversional power under Section 24 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 or not. The ground on which the Financial Commissioner declined to interfere in this case is a recognised valid ground. Even if this finding of fact as to the actual delay were to be incorrect or even if the suo motu limitation for time imposed by the learned Financial Commissioner on himself was in any manner construed to be rather conservative, it is not open to this Court to interfere in discretionary orders (like the one passed by Shri Saroop Krishan on the 25th April, 1964) in exercise of the writ jurisdiction of this Court. In Ebrahim Aboobakar and another v. Custodian General of Evacuee Property, New Delhi, 1952 AIR(SC) 319 it was held that a writ in the nature of certiorari cannot be granted to quash the decision of an inferior Court on the ground that the decision is wrong. It was specifically observed by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in that case that whether an appeal has been preferred within the time prescribed by law or not is a matter for the decision of the appellate Court constituted to hear the appeal and that even though the Court decides such a question wrongly a writ cannot be issued against it for quashing the order. This Court (Shamsher Bahadur J.) dismissed C.W. 861 of 1962, (Chuhar Singh v. The State of Punjab and others) on 10th April, 1963, in somewhat similar circumstances on the ground that even if a question of limitation is decided wrongly by a Tribunal of competent jurisdiction, no writ can be issued to quash it. It has also been held by this Court in Bhup Singh and others v. State of Punjab and others,1965 PunLR 176, that a question of limitation even if wrongly decided cannot in any event be questioned in a writ proceeding.