SARDAR SINGH Vs. COLLECTOR, SONEPAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two civil writs may be disposed of by a common order. The orders of the Collector affirming an order of the Assistant Collector arising out of certain applications under section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, are in question in these two writ petitions. The submission of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the subordinate tribunals failed to consider the question whether the land was shamilat deh within the meaning of section 2 (8) read with section 3 (1) of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, that is to say whether according to the Revenue records, the lands were not used for the benefit of the village community or a part thereof or for the common purposes of the village on 9th January, 1954. It is a common ground that this was the main question to be considered. The learned counsel for respondent No. 3 is unable to state that the question was considered by the subordinate tribunals. He would, however, urge that it was unnecessary for the tribunals to consider this question as the matter had been concluded by an earlier decision of the Collector in a proceeding under section 13 (b) of the Act. From a perusal of the judgment in the earlier proceeding, we find that what was decided in the earlier proceeding was that the plaintiffs therein had not established that they were in cultivating possession of the land. The present petitioners were defendants in the suit. The suit included a number of lands including the lands which are the subject matter of the two writ petitions. In the written statement filed by the present petitioners they denied that the proprietors of the Pana were the owners of the land in regard to most of the lands which they said vested in the Panchayat. The petitioners now claim that the present lands were the lands which they excepted from their written statement at that time. Merely because the suit of some other co-shares was dismissed on the ground that they were not in cultivating possession of the land, we cannot say that the present petitioners are barred from putting forward their claim especially when they had stated in their earlier written statement that only some of the lands had vested in the Panchayat. We think that the interest of justice will be served if the orders of the Collector are quashed and a direction is given to the Collector to dispose of the appeals afresh in the light of what has been said above. Let such direction issue. The parties are directed to appear before the Collector on 22nd November, 1976.