ATMA DEVI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Udho Dass respondent No. 5 made a gift of 50 Standard Acres and 12 units of land out of his holding in favour of his four sons on January 31, 1956. By means of a written conveyance deed, 64 Bighas and 13 Biswas of land out of the gifted property were sold by the four sons of Udho Dass to some outsiders on October 25, 1957. The said sale was pre-empted by the present petitioners who are the respective wives of four sons of Udho Dass. Their suit was decreed on October 14, 1959. In execution of the pre-emption decree, the petitioners obtained possession of 64 Bighas and 13 Biswas of the land. Thereafter, the proceedings for determination of surplus area of Udho Dass culminated in the order of Special Collector, Punjab, dated May 30, 1961 (Annexure 'A'). After excluding the permissible area of 50 standard acres which had been selected by Udho Dass and certain lands which were under orchards, the Special Collector declared 54 Standard Acres and 6-1/2 units in village Gidranwali as surplus area of Udho Dass. The transfer in favour of the sons, was ignored as having been effected after April 15, 1953. The appeal of the petitioners against the above said order having been dismissed by the Commissioner on 4-6-1963 (vide Annexure 'B' to the writ petition) and their further revision having been dismissed by the order of the Financial Commissioner dated October 17, 1963 (Annexure 'D') they filed an application for review (copy Annexure 'E') which was also dismissed by the Financial Commissioner vide his order dated February 4, 1964 (copy Annexure 'G'). Thereafter, the present petition was filed on February 24, 1964 under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution for quashing all the above said impugned orders, whereby the disputed land acquired by the petitioners under the pre-emption decree had been included in determining the surplus area of Udho Dass.

(2.) In the return of the State it has been admitted that respondent No. 5 had gifted some land to his sons in 1956, but it has been added that the said transfer had to be ignored as the gift was made after 15.4.1953, that is, after the date of coming into force of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (hereinafter called the Act). The claim of the petitioners has, further been resisted on the ground that they did not own any land on April 15, 1953 and cannot, therefore, be termed as landowners for the purposes of the Act. It has been added in the return that the pre-emption decrees in favour of the petitioners cannot be taken into consideration as the gift of the land in the first instance was made by respondent No. 5 in favour of his sons after 15.4.1953 and the pre-emption suits were also filed after that date. Acquisition of land by the petitioners through civil Court decrees, cannot it has been averred in the return, be considered and was, therefore, correctly ignored by the Collector under Section 10-A(c) of the Act. It has been further averred that the Financial Commissioner (Revenue) had referred to an identical case decided by Mr. Justice Shamsher Bahadur It is stated that the dauhters-in-law are the relations being the wives of the sons of respondent No. 5 and they just played a nice little part to evade the provisions of the Act; but since the transfers were effected after 15.4.1953 and the decrees were obtained in 1959, the transfers in question were correctly ignored.

(3.) At the hearing of the petition Mr. Ram Rang has submitted that though the transfers in dispute had ordinarily to be ignored under Section 10-A of the Act they were saved from being ignored under Section 19-B. He has added that the amendment of Section 19-B of the Act by the amending Punjab Act 14 of 1962 (whereby the words "subject to the provisions of Section 10-A" have been added in Section 19-B) was expressly made retrospective from 30-7-1958 and that therefore the transfers in question which were made prior to July 30, 1958 could not be ignored by the Collector. He relied on the judgment of Mahajan J. in Gurcharan Singh and others V. The State of Punjab and another, 1967 PunLJ 193. It was held in that case that a combined reading of the provisions of Sections 1(2) and 6 of the Punjab Act 14 of 1962 clearly shows that Section 19-B of the Act as amended has been made operative with effect from July 30, 1958. In almost similar circumstances, Mahajan, J. quashed the order declaring the surplus area of the original landowner by ignoring the transfers which had been effected after 15.4.1953 but before July 30, 1958. The learned Advocate-General for the State of Haryana pointed out that the earlier judgment of Mahajan, J. in Bhalle Ram and others V. The State of Punjab and others,1962 PunLR 331 on which reliance has been placed by the learned Judge in Gurcharan Singh's case has been reversed in Letters Patent Appeal vide State of Punjab and others V. Bhalle Ram and others, 1963 PunLJ 65. I have perused the judgment of the Division Bench in the Letters Patent Appeal. The reversal of the judgment of the learned Single Judge was based on the provisions of the Amending Act. After referring to the circumstances of that case the Bench observed that in those circumstances and in view of the express amendment of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, the decision arrived at by Mahajan J. could not stand. The question of the retrospective effect of the relevant provision of the amending Act was not decided by the Letters Patent Bench. In any event I am bound by the judgment of Mahajan, J. in Gurcharan Singh's case. Moreover, it is agreed by the learned counsel on bath the sides that no pronouncement to the contrary has been made after the decision of Mahajan, J. in the case of Gurcharan Singh and others. Being bound by the judgment I follow the same and consequently I allow this writ petition and quash the impugned orders.