RAMESH CHANDER Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FACTS of this revision petition relevant for deciding the case are as follows. Petitioners moved an application under Section 19 of the Haryana Ceiling on Lands Holdings Act, 1972 before the Prescribed Authority-cum-Collector, Agrarian, Samalkha on 20.8.2001. The plea in the application was that in deciding the surplus area of Smt. Ram Diti, on 18.10.1972, Naib Tehsildar, Surplus Area, declared 21 standard acres 5-3/4 units as surplus area. This order under Section 24-A(a) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, was passed ex parte against Smt. Ram Diti. It is claimed that Smt. Ram Diti died on 4.10.1970. Before her death, in 1968-69, she had gifted some portion of her reserved area to the present petitioners. Petitioners claim that this gifted area was wrongly included in her surplus area. Petitioners claimed before the Prescribed Authority, Samalkha, that the inclusion of the Khasra numbers of the lands gifted to them in calculating the surplus area is a typographical error. On these grounds, petitioners sought correction of the order dated 18.10.1972, taking out the lands gifted to them out of the surplus area. This application was allowed by the Prescribed Authority vide her order dated 28.11.2002 and cancelled the allotment made out of surplus pool to the respondents. Respondents filed an appeal before the Commissioner, Rohtak Division, Rohtak against the order of the Prescribed Authority. Commissioner, Rohtak accepted the appeal and set aside the order of the Prescribed Authority. Aggrieved by the Commissioner's order dated 21.12.2004, petitioners have filed this revision petition.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioners argued that the Commissioner while accepting the appeal, has overlooked the fact that there was a delay in filing the appeal before the Commissioner. Respondents had not given cogent reasons for the delay and the Commissioner has condoned the delay merely due to the fact that he found merit in the case of the respondent. Commissioner had also overlooked the fact that no appeal is maintainable against an order passed under Section 19 of the Haryana Ceiling of Land Holdings Act, 1972 for correction of clerical mistakes. The Naib Tehsildar, Surplus Area, had no jurisdiction to select the land of reserved area for clubbing the same to another person. The land selected by him had already been gifted to the petitioners and no notice was given to them before declaring the land as surplus. The total land of big land owner in this case has been wrongly calculated by taking the value of the sailab area to be ten (10) annas instead of nine (9) annas. Therefore, only 66 standard acres land were to be declared to be owned by Smt. Ram Diti and only 16 standard acres could be declared as her surplus area. This was a clerical mistake. Under the Act, the Prescribed Authority has the power to correct such errors at any time. These material issues have been ignored by the Commissioner in his order. It was further argued that the earlier order of the Financial Commissioner dated 7.2.1990 is already under challenge in a writ petition before the Hon'ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana and therefore, it should not have been treated as final. The order of the Commissioner is a non-speaking order on all these issues raised before him by the present petitioners. Therefore this revision may be accepted and the Commissioner's order of 21.12.2004 may be set aside.

(3.) WE have heard the arguments of both the Counsel and the District Attorney for the State who stated that the Prescribed Authority was not competent to exempt area from surplus pool and cancel allotment of surplus land under the pretext of correcting clerical errors. We have also gone through the documents in the file carefully. In his order dated 21.12.2004, the learned Commissioner has observed that the Prescribed Authority had committed a serious violation of norms as she was not competent to pass such an order under Section 19 of the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972. He has further observed that the matter has already been agitated before various authorities for including the Financial Commissioner, Haryana who had decided the case in 1990. The same issue cannot be reopened by the Prescribed Authority in this manner.