AMAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these two petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution, which have come up before us in pursuance of the order of reference, dated August, 31, 1966, made by my learned brother Shamsher Bahadur, J., the following questions arise relating to the interpretation and scope of certain provisions of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 10 of 1953 (hereinafter called the Act), as subsequently amended in 1953, 1955, 1957, 1959 and 1962:

(2.) THE facts leading to the filing of these petitions are substantially common and are not very complicated. Land measuring more than 133 bighas in area in village Darba Kalan, tehsil Sirsa, district Hissar, belonged to Shrimati Lachhman (hereinafter called the landowner). She was admittedly not a small landowner. Out of the said holding of the landowner, we are concerned in this case with Khasra Nos. 177, 265 and 343 only. According to the findings of fact recorded by the departmental authorities, khasra No. 177, measuring 64 bighas 12 biswae was in the personal cultivation of the landowner, but khasra Nos. 265 and 343, measuring 67 bighas 19 biswasi were in the tenancy of Chandu and Shri Chand on April, 15, 1953, when the Act came into force. The mutation of gift of the land in question in favour of Amar Singh (Petitioner in Civil Writ No. 854 of 1963), who is the son -in -law of the landowner, which had been recorded on December 24, 1955, was ignored by the Collector while declaring the surplus area of the landowner on April 24, 1961, as the alienation by way of gift was admittedly subsequent to the crucial date April 15, 1953.

(3.) AFTER recording the above findings, the learned Collector, Surplus Area went on a tangent and sat in appeal over the decision of the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade under Section 18 of the Act, which had become final and against which no appeal or revision had been preferred, and proceeded to hold that in the application, under Section 18 of the Act, the parties had entered into a compromise and it had not in fact been shown that the tenants had been in continuous cultivating possession of the respective holdings for full six years. On that basis, he held that the landowner had conspired with her son -in -law Amar Singh and his brother Indraj to retain the land in question in contravention of the law, and, therefore, the Collector felt inclined to ignore those transactions and to consider the entire area to be that of the landowner herself. On that basis, the Collector included the holdings of the tenants in question in the surplus area of the landowner. Subsequently, the landowner's appeal against the order of the Collector, dated April 24, 1961, also came up before the Commissioner on 15th of October, 1962, but was dismissed by him as in fructuous in view of the subsequent order of of the Collector, dated the 11th of May, 1962, in pursuance of the remand order which had earlier been passed by the Commissioner in Amar Singh's appeal on December 21, 1961.