JOGINDER SINGH Vs. DIRECTOR CONSOLIDATION OF HOLDINGS PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitioners have challenged the order of the Director of Consolidation of Holdings Punjab passed under S.42 of the East Punjab Holding (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (for short, hereinafter referred to as the Act) in this petition.

(2.) The brief facts as unfolded in the writ petition are these. The petitioners are in possession of different parcels of land under the Gram Panchayat (respondent 2). The land was described as Shamlat deh in the revenue record and owned by the Gram Panchayat. It was mutated in the name of the Gram Panchayat in the year 1956-57 under the provisions of Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Village Common Lands Act).

(3.) The right holders of the village, including respondents 3 to 6, preferred a petition under S.42 of the Act before the Director of Consolidation of Holdings, Punjab, in Aug. 1985, contending that the land in dispute was Banjar Qadim and according to the entry in the Wajib-ul-Arz of the village it had to be apportioned among the proprietors and Khewatdars of the village prorate of their holdings in the revenue estate, that the Direct or of Consolidation of Holdings had no jurisdiction to hold that the land in dispute vested in the Gram Panchayat and was liable to be partitioned among the proprietors; that the petition had been filed after a lapse of 25 years; no petition under S.42 of the Act could be filed challenging the title of the Gram Panchayat over the land in dispute and the proper remedy lay under S.11 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, and that the Collector was the proper authority to decide whether the land vested in the Gram Panchayat or not.