MISRI Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners have impugned the order Annexure P-3, of Special Collector, dated 6th February, 1984, whereby he disposed of the application made by the petitioners-herein dated 24th April, 1981 as also the application moved before Assistant Collector 1st Grade, Jhajjar, praying that the surplus area case of Smt. Ganeshi Devi under Punjab Law as well as under Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972, be decided.

(2.) The Special Collector dismissed those applications on the ground that the very question of the status of Smt. Ganeshi Devi was involved in cases which reached the High Court at the instance of the petitioners. The High Court had sustained the decision of the Financial Commissioner. The question of Ganeshi Devi's status had come in for consideration on two counts one, that Ganeshi Devi moved an application under section 9 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act for ejectment of the petitioners on the ground that she was a small landowner and two, when the petitioners claimed to purchase the land under their tenancy on the ground that Ganeshi Devi was a big landowner and they were entitled to purchase the land under their tenancy under section 18 of the said Act. In both the matters, the petitioners lost upto the High Court. The proceedings reached the High Court first time in C.W.P. No. 2282 of 1974 which was dismissed vide judgment dated 9th November, 1976. An L.P.A. No. 494 of 1976 was dismissed on 23rd November, 1976. The petitioners thereafter moved two applications - one before Special Collector and the other before Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, Jhajjar, which were dismissed by the impugned order herein. The petitioners filed a second writ petition No. 1820 of 1981. In the second writ petition, after narrating the circumstances of the orders passed by various authorities on the purchase application and the ejectment application and the decision of the High Court in the aforementioned writ petition, the petitioners alleged that the said decisions were procured on the basis of false averments; that they had come to know that Smt. Ganeshi Devi had inherited 79 acres 1 kanal and 4 marlas on the death of her mother Smt. Vasandi Bai and that she was not being entitled to hold more than 30 standard acres or 60 ordinary acres, was decidedly a big landowner ; that the petitioner-tenants were entitled to purchase the area under their tenancy measuring 232 kanals 2 marlas. Orders of Assistant Collector, the Collector, Commissioner and Financial Commissioner as also the High Court in C.W.P. No. 2282 of 1974 and in L.P.A. No. 494 of 1976 were sought to be quashed as being illegal on grounds specified in the petition. In the prayer clause, the petitioners admittedly sought a direction to the subordinate authorities for allowing the purchase applications of the petitioners which had been earlier rejected by orders which were termed as Annexures P-5, P-6, P-7 and P-7-A to this writ petition. The Court disposed of the petition with the following order :-

(3.) It has been argued on behalf of the petitioners that the State Government not being party to the proceedings initiated by the landowner for ejectment of the petitioners and those which were initiated by the petitioners for purchasing land under their tenancy, the decisions rendered by any authority in those proceedings were therefore not binding upon the State and the Special Collector was therefore entitled to determine the surplus area case of the landowner unhindered by the decision rendered in the afore-mentioned proceedings. It has also been canvassed that status of landowner whether she is small landowner or big landowner can be determined by the Collector in terms of sections 5 B and 19-B of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act and not while dealing with the matter under section 9 or section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act.