SANTOKH MASIH Vs. JOINT DEVELOPMENT COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners claim that they are in cultivating possession of the land in dispute as tenants of the Central Government. They further claim that they are continuously paying rent to the Central Government and have placed on record copies of Form No. 32A along with the receipt and challan. Annexures P-3 and P-4 refer.

(2.) Gram Panchayat filed an application under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 (for short "the Act") for eviction of the petitioners. The case set up by the petitioners is that this land belongs to Mohammedans Community, who have migrated to' Pakistan in the year 1947 and as such has come to vest in the Central Government by virtue of provisions of Sections 7 and 8 of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act. Some jamabandies have also been relied now in support of this contention. It is pleaded that the Gram Panchayat is illegally managing the land and had got the mutation of the land sanctioned in its name. The Gram Panchayat had earlier threatened the petitioners to dispossess them when the occupants approached the civil court.

(3.) The civil court decreed the suit in favour of the plaintiffs and also observed that shares of the evacuee which had vested in the custodian did not vest in the Panchayat and that the Panchayat has nothing to do with this land. This judgment, according to the petitioners, has acquired finality as it was not challenged.