JAGIR SINGH Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, Jagir Singh, is a displaced person from Bahawalpur State (Pakistan). In lieu of the land left by him in Pakistan, he was allotted 76.64 standard acres of land in village Qasim Bhatti, Tehsil Faridkot, District Bhatinda, under the quasi-permanent allotment scheme enforced by the Pepsu Government under Notification No. 8-R, dated July 23, 1949. That land was, after coming into force of the Displaced Persons (Compensation & Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, allotted to him on permanent basis and proprietary rights were conferred on him sometime in 1962 or 1963. The permanent rights sanad was issued to him on August 17, 1964.

(2.) The petitioner has three sons, Amrik Singh, Pritpal Singh and Surinder Singh, and by a report made to the Patwari and recorded by him in the daily diary at No. 426 on August 31, 1953, he orally gifted 391 Kanals and 4 Marlas of land in their favour and put them in possession thereof and the donees continuously remained in possession of that land ever since. In 1963, the sons obtained a decree from the Civil Court with regard to the gift made in their favour and on the basis of that decree, mutation was duly entered in their names. Proceedings for the determination of the surplus area under the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, were started and the Special Collector, by order dated March 16, 1964, declared 36.64 standard acres as surplus area of the petitioner. With regard to the gift of land in favour of his sons, the Special Collector expressed the opinion that the cultivation of the land by the donees was recorded in Kharif 1954 and Rabi 1955 and thereafter from Kharif 1956 onwards. Since the petitioner was only a lessee of the evacuee land and held it temporarily, he had no right to make a gift thereof in favour of his sons and that gift was, therefore, invalid and did not take effect. In any case, the date of transfer in favour of the sons could be May 29, 1963 on which date the civil Court passed a decree in their favour. Thus, the Special Collector did not accept the plea of the petitioner that no part of the land should be declared surplus and the gift made by him in favour of his sons on August 31, 1953, should be taken as valid. Against that order the petitioner filed an appeal which was dismissed by the Commissioner, Patiala Division, by order dated July 27, 1964. Revision against that order was dismissed by the Financial Commissioner on May 14, 1965, as both parties to the revision were absent. An application for restoring that revision petition was dismissed by the learned Financial Commissioner on July 30, 1965. The petitioner then filed the present petition for the quashing of the orders of the Special Collector, the Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner.

(3.) The main argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner, is that he had the right to make the gift of the land in favour of his sons on August 31, 1953, and even if his title to the land on that date was inchoate, his sons got full ownership rights after proprietary rights were conferred on the petitioner and they should be deemed to have perfected their title and become owners of the land as on August 31, 1953, on which date they had acquired an imperfect title. This plea was not accepted by the Special Collector, the Commissioner or the Financial Commissioner nor is it acceptable to me. Reference may be made to the scheme of quasi-permanent allotment which was evolved to solve the problem of the displaced persons in 1949. Prior thereto, the entire evacuee property including the evacuee lands vested in the Custodian appointed by the State Government for the purpose of management. When the State Acts were replaced by the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, the evacuee property continued to vest in the Custodian for the purpose of management. It is thus clear that a lessee or an allottee from the Custodian could not have better rights in the land than the Custodian himself had. It is for this reason that in the Notification No. 8-R dated July 23, 1949, issued by the Government of Patiala and East Punjab States Union, under which lands were allotted to the displaced persons, obligations of allottees were mentioned in paragraph 4. According to clause (c) of that paragraph, no allottee could transfer or charge the land by any sale, gift, will, mortgage or other private contract and was only permitted to lease the land for a period not exceeding three years and that too with the consent in writing of the Custodian or the rehabilitation authority which had to be obtained proper to the granting of the lease. Under paragraph 5 of the notification, the Custodian or the rehabilitation authority could allow the allottee to exchange the whole or any part of his land with other evacuee land in the Patiala and East Punjab States Union or with the concurrence of the East Punjab Government, in the territories comprised in the province of East Punjab. The proprietary interests of the evacuees were extinguished when the President of India acquired all evacuee property by issuing notifications under Section 12 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, and all such properties were constituted into the compensation pool for satisfying the claims of the displaced persons in respect of immovable property left by them in Pakistan. The Supreme Court in Amar Singh and others V. Custodian Evacuee Property, Punjab and another, 1957 AIR(SC) 599 after consideration of the provisions of the notification and the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, held that the position of a displaced landholder to whom evacuee agricultural land had been allotted under notification of July 8, 1949, issued by the Punjab Government, which contained identical provisions as the notification of the Pepsu Government dated July 23, 1949, was definitely better than that of the allottee of other kinds of property under the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 and the Central Rules of 1950, but the rights of the landholder in the land allotted to him, fell short of what can be considered as being in itself 'property' either in the widest sense or in a limited sense. In paragraph 22 of the report, the position was summed up as under :-