GRAM PANCHAYAT, MUNDLIYAN, TEHSIL TOHANA Vs. BAWRIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) GRAM Panchayat, Mundliyan, Tehsil Tohana, District Hissar has filed the present Regular Second Appeal and it has been directed against the judgment and decree dated 5.3.1991 passed by the Court of District Judge, Hissar, who accepted the appeal of the plaintiff-respondents and set aside the judgment and decree dated 24.3.1990 passed by the Court of Sub Judge Ist Class, Tohana, who dismissed the suit of the plaintiffs.

(2.) BRIEF facts of the case are that plaintiffs Bawria and others filed a suit for declaration to the effect that they were cultivating the land in suit situated in village Mundliyan, Tehsil Tohana, District Hissar as tenants Ghair Marussi and the entries of Khasra girdawari were wrong and were liable to be corrected and not binding upon the rights of the plaintiffs, who were entitled to get the entries as tenants Gair Marussi in the revenue record. The plaintiffs further prayed for a decree for permanent injunction of the effect that defendant-Gram Panchayat be restrained from interfering into the possession of the plaintiffs who may not be evicted from the land in question except in due course of law.

(3.) THE suit was contested by the defendant-Gram Panchayat stating that plaintiffs were evicted from the suit land under section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 as applicable to the Haryana. In pursuance of the said ejectment, the possession of the land in suit was taken on 17.4.1984 and 22.1.1985. Again, the plaintiffs took forcible possession of the suit land in an unauthorised manner. The plaintiffs were not tenants. They were not paying any rent or Batai to the defendant- Panchayat. Even otherwise, as per bye-laws of the Gram Panchayat, the land in question could be leased out by the Panchayat for one year only and panchayat could not create any tenancy in favour of anybody after one year. Prior to 1982, the suit land was given to the plaintiffs on lease but later on their possession became unauthorised. It was also pleaded by the appellant- Gram Panchayat that the suit of the plaintiffs is not maintainable in the present form; that the civil court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit; that the plaintiffs had no locus standi to file the suit; and that the plaintiffs did not approach the Civil Courts with clean hands.