BARHMI DEVI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB ETC

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, Brahmi Devi and respondents 2 to 5, are the right holders of village Bhagsar, Tehsil Muktsar, District Ferozepur. In the said village, consolidation operations were taken in hand on 13th November, 1961 when a scheme of consolidation was prepared and published. In pursuance of the said scheme, the repartition was announced on 26th February, 1964. Mit Singh and Jagdev Singh, sons of Atma Singh, raised objections as they were dissatisfied with the repartition announced by the Assistant Consolidation Officer. Feeling dissatisfied with the order of the Consolidation Officer passed on their objections, they went up in appeal to the Settlement Officer and on their appeal, the Settlement Officer passed the order, Annexure 'A', on 17th November, 1965. Sant Kaur, respondent No. 2, was one of the right-holders who were affected by the said order, Annexure 'A'. The said Mit Singh and Jagdev Singh remained unsatisfied and challenged the order, Annexure 'A' in appeal under Section 21(4) of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, herein referred to as the Act. Smt. Sant Kaur had also challenged the order, Annexure 'A;, but not in appeal but by way of a petition under Section 42 of the Act. A few other persons had also challenged the order, Annexure 'A'. The Assistant Director of Consolidation vide his order dated 5th April, 1967 Annexure 'C' disposed of all the appeals against the order Annexure 'A'. The modifications that he made in the order, Annexure 'A' were as a result of compromise arrived at between the parties before him. Respondent No. 2, as also the petitioner, was a party before the Assistant Director and it was as a result of this compromise order that the petitioner was fitted at a place where the land belonged to Kheta Singh and Kheta Singh had his major portion of grade 'B' land. This order was challenged by respondent No. 2 under Section 42 of the Act, but that petition was got dismissed on behalf of respondent No. 2 (on the ground that she did not wish to pursue the petition, as she was not affected by the order Annexure 'C' passed by the Assistant Director) vide order dated 25th July, 1969, Annexure 'D'. By the time, the order Annxure 'D', was made, respondent No. 2 had already secured an order, "Annexure 'G' from the Director of Consolidation, whereby he had remanded the case to the Consolidation Officer for decision on a specific point as to whether the major portion of Kartar Singh had been wrongly determined at Khasra Nos. 2995/1076 etc. which fact depended on the determination of a further question as to whether the said Kartar Singh had been in cultivating possession of Khasra Nos. 1501 and 1502.

(2.) The Consolidation Officer, in pursuance of the said remand order, vide his order, dated 28th February, 1969, Annexure 'H', found that the said Kartar Singh had been correctly fitted and that no change was called for so far as he was concerned. Then the order Annexure 'H', was challenged by Smt. Sant Kaur, respondent No. 2, under Section 42 of the Act, on which the orders dated 26th November, 1970 and 11th March, 1971, were made by the Additional Director of Consolidation. The petitioner, who was arrayed as respondent No. 2 for the first time before the Director of Consolidation, felt aggrieved and approached this Court on the writ side, vide Civil Writ No. 1964 of 1971.

(3.) This Court set aside the aforesaid two orders on the short ground that these had been passed without affording full opportunity to the petitioner and the matter was sent back to the Director for decision on merits after hearing all the interested parties. It was then that the Director passed the impugned order dated 18th August, 1972 Annexure 'J'.