MUKH RAM Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In these two petitions Nos. 3396 and 3397 of 1979, which are otherwise not being contested or opposed by the respondent Gram Panchayat by filing a written statement, the petitioners impugn the orders passed by the authorities under section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 , (for short, the Act) directing their eviction from the plots claimed to be in their respective possession as a result of purchase from the Gram Panchayat. According to the petitioners, they purchased these plots prior to April, 1953 and the notice under section 7, referred to above, were for the first time served upon them somewhere in the year 1975. In a nutshell, the claim of the petitioners is that firstly they are vendees from the Panchayat and thus have a perfect title to the plots in questions; secondly in any case their possession is permissive and cannot be held to be unauthorised; and lastly the authorities under the Act had no jurisdiction to settle the question of title which they had unequivocally raised before them. Though the authorities under the Act have negatived these pleas of theirs yet, as has been pointed out right in the beginning, the respondent Panchayat has not chosen to controvert the stand of the petitioners.

(2.) Having heard the learned counsel for the petitioners, I do not feel the necessity of expressing any opinion on the first two contentions noticed above, as according to me, the petitioners deserve to succeed on the third and the last mentioned ground alone. It has been ruled by this Court more than once that during the course of proceedings under section 7 of the Act, the authorities concerned have no jurisdiction to decide the title of the parties to the disputed property. In view of that, I find the impugned orders to be totally without jurisdiction and thus set them aside. No costs.