PIARA SINGH Vs. JOINT DIRECTOR OF PANCHAYATS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment shall dispose of civil writ petition Nos. 2958,2959 2960 of 1983.

(2.) PETITIONERS seek quashing of Annexures P-4 and P-5 or for grant of any other writ, direction or order as the Court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case.

(3.) CONTESTING the claim set up by the petitioners, the contesting respondents beside raising few preliminary objections have controverted the various material averments made in the petition. By way of preliminary objections, it has been stated that petitioners cannot pursue two remedies at a time i. e. one by way of writ petition and the other by way of civil suit and so that writ petition deserves to be dismissed on this ground alone; that Shangara Singh-petitioner No. 2 died some 5 years back but his legal representatives, namely, Balbir Singh and Joga Singh have not come forward to prosecute the pending writ petition; that Inder Singh has handed over the possession of the land in dispute to the Gram Panchayat and the Gram Panchayat has leased it in an open auction held on 10. 1. 1994; and that another suit has been filed by Piara Singh and others on 23. 7. 1994 and it is only when an interim injunction had been granted, the suit has been got dismissed as withdrawn and it is thereafter that the writ petition has been got restored, so the petitioners action is per-se malafide. On merits, it has been stated that none of the petitioners name appears in the list of right holders and so they cannot lay claim to any land which has been described to be a Bachat land by them. At best such a claim could be laid by the original right holders, if any. It has been further stated that since the jurisdiction of the civil Court was barred; any decision rendered by such a Court is wholly without jurisdiction and so does not effect the right of the respondents in terms of the provisions of the Act.