SWARAN SINGH Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will dispose of two writ petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution-C. W. No. 81 of 1975 (Swaran Singh v. Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Punjab and others) and C. W. 113 of 1975 (Dalip Singh v. Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Punjab and others) for quashing the impugned orders (Annexure P. 4 in each petition), dated 21-11-1974 by which the revision petition filed by each of the petitioners was dismissed by the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Punjab, ordering the ejectment of the petitioner from the land in dispute.

(2.) SOME land of Bal Singh respondent No. 5 (hereinafter to be called the Landlord) was declared as surplus, being in excess of the permissible limit, under the provisions of the Punjab Security Land Tenures act, 1953 (hereinafter to be called the Punjab Act ). The petitions in both these writ petitions were resettled on a part of the land so declared surplus under the Punjab Act and the rules framed thereunder. According to the provisions of the Punjab Act, the landlord continued to be the owner of the land which had been declared surplus and thus the petitioners after resettlement became his tenants. As the landlord refused to accept rent from the petitioners, the latter filed applications on 5-5-1970 and 14-5-1970 under Section 14-A (iii) of the Punjab Act for the deposit of rent. In order to defeat the attempt of the petitioners, the landlord submitted an application on 7-9-1970 under Section 9 of the Punjab Act for the ejectment of the petitioners on the ground that they had failed to pay rent without sufficient cause. In this application arrears of rent had been claimed for Kharif 1968 to Rabi 1970. In the applications filed by the petitioners, rent as claimed to be due from them was deposited under the orders of the Assistant Collector, Revenue, on 25-9-1970 and subsequently the arrears of rent as ordered were deposited. However, in the proceedings initiated by the landlord for the ejectment of the petitioners, an order of ejectment was passed by the Assistant Collector on 7-4-1971 with a finding that the petitioners had failed to pay the rent regularly without sufficient cause. Appeals filed by the petitioners against the above order failed and were dismissed by the Collector by his order dated 11-1-1972. Another attempt made by the petitioners in revision before the Additional Commissioner also failed and the revision petitions were dismissed on 26-6-1973. Further revisions by the petitioners were also dismissed by the learned Financial Commissioner by the impugned orders son 21-11-1974. The orders of ejectment by the Asstt. Collector, the Collector and the Addl. Commissioner are respectively marked as Annexures P. 1, P. 2 and P. 3. It is the impugned order, Annexure P. 4, of the learned Financial Commissioner in each petition which has been challenged.

(3.) BEFORE the learned Financial Commissioner, the order of ejectment by the authorities below was challenged by the petitioners on two grounds. Firstly, that the petitioners were not liable to be ejected as they had not failed to pay the rent regularly, rather the landlord refused to accept the rent presented by them, and consequently the petitioners submitted an application before the Assistant Collector for deposit of arrears of rent before the application for their ejectment was filed by the landlord, and in pursuance of the order of the Assistant Collector rent due was duly deposited. Secondly, that the order of ejectment was inoperative according to Section 17 of the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1973 (hereinafter to be called the new Act ). The learned Financial Commissioner did not agree with either of the contention of the petitioners and held that Section 17 of the new Act was not applicable as the provisions of the Punjab Act were not inconsistent with any provisions of the new Act regarding ejectment of tenants on the ground of non-payment of rent. Regarding arrears of rent, it was held that all the three authorities below had concurrently given a finding of fact that both the petitioners had made default in the payment of rent regularly without sufficient cause and that this finding of fact could not be interfered with in revision.