KISHAN SINGH Vs. CHIEF SETTLEMENT COMMISSIONER AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts relevant for deciding this writ petition are not in dispute. On an application of Fauja Singh and Harnam Singh, respondents Nos. 3 and 4, the Managing Officer passed an order dated October 22, 1963, recommending th cancellation of the permanent rights acquired by Kishan Singh petitioner in respect of 1-10 1/4 standard acres of land allotted to him in village. Hashmatwala, Tehsil Zira, District Ferozepure, and directed the parties to appear before the Chief Settlement Commissioner on October 30 in that year, as it was the Chief Settlement Commissioner alone who cold cancel the permanent rights of the petitioner in the land in question. On the date fixed that is October 30, 1963, none of the parties appeared before the Chief Settlement Commissioner and after noticing the fact that the parties had been directed by the Managing Officer to appear before him on that date, but they had chosen not to put in appearance, he accepted the recommendation of the Managing Officer and set aside the permanent rights in question belonging to the petitioner, to the extent indicated above. This writ petition was filed to set aside the impugned order of the Chief Settlement Commissioner on the solitary ground that it had been passed in violation of sub-section (3) of Section 23 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation & Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 (hereinafter called the Act), and Rule 105 of the rules framed thereunder. The petition has been contested on behalf of respondent Nos. 3 and 4. They have filed a joint written-statement, dated January 28, 1964, wherein it has been stated that the writ petition should be dismissed as the petitioner had full knowledge of the date fixed for appearance before the Chief Settlement Commissioner and he knowingly did not put in appearance. It is not disputed that both sides had been heard by the Managing Officer before his making the recommendation on October 22, 1963.

(2.) Mr. Harbans Lal Sarin the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner has relied on a Full Bench judgment of this Hon'ble Court in Hira Lal Kher v. The Chief Settlement Commissioner, New Delhi,1961 PLR 560, FB, wherein the facts were these. The writ petitioner's application for revision under Section 24 of the Act, has been dismissed by the Chief Settlement Commissioner in limine without giving him any notice of the preliminary hearing and without actually hearing them. When that order was impugned before the Division Bench of this Court (Grover and Mahajan JJ), the learned Judges referred the case to a larger Bench on account of the importance of the question involved therein. From the judgment of the Full Bench, it appears that two questions were raised before it. It was firstly urged that sub-section (3) of Section 24, which provides that no order which prejudicially affects any person, shall be passed under Section 24 without giving him reasonable opportunity of being heard, had been infringed as the petitioner had not been heard by the Chief Settlement Commissioner before dismissing his application for revision in limine. This argument was not accepted by the Full Bench on the ground that the provisions of sub-section (3) of Section 24 could not be relied upon in order to support the case for oral hearing of a person who had himself applied for varying the order of the lower authority, which was adverse to his interests. G.D. Khosla, C.J. (as he then was), who wrote the judgment of the Full Bench, observed in this connection as follows :-

(3.) In this view of the matter, it appears that the Chief Settlement Commissioner has no jurisdiction to grant a petition for revision without his giving a notice to the party against whom he proposes to pass an order and affording him an opportunity of being heard.