NAGENDER SINGH CHOHAN Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Whether the crucial date for determining the majority of a son of a landowner (and his consequent eligibility for a separate unit of land) is the appointed day of the 24th of January, 1971, under the Haryana Ceiling on Land holdings Act, 1972,--admittedly is the sole, though meaningful, question which arises for determination in this set of sixteen writ petitions.

(2.) As is apparent from the above, the question is primarily legal and the facts, therefore, pale into relevant (sic-relative?) insignificance. It, therefore, suffices to make a brief reference to those in C. W. P. No. 3555 of 1978(Naginder Singh v. The State of Haryana). The petitioner therein claims to have been born on the 24th of April, 1954, and it is averred that his father owned considerable agricultural land in various village estates. The Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972, came into force on the 23rd of December, 1972, by publication in the gazette of that date. By virtue of its provisions the father of the petitioner was entitled to select a separate unit of permissible area for each of his adult sons. The claim of the petitioner is that with effect from the aforesaid date of enforcement there arose a vested right to a separate unit of permissible area which could be claimed for each adult son at the time of making the selection under Section 9(2) of the Act. The petitioner claims that on this material date he had attained adulthood. However, the respondent- State had issued instructions, annexure P. 1, for filling in the declaration form wherein in paragraph 7 it was prescribed that the material date for determining the majority of the sons of a landowner was the 24th of January, 1971. The petitioner's grievance is that in the absence of a specific provision in the Act, the respondent-State has no authority to prescribe the aforesaid date for determining the age of majority and thus to divest him of the right accruing to him under the statute. The aforesaid annexure P. 1 has, therefore, been challenged as patently unreasonable and in violation of the petitioner's fundamental right to hold property under Article 19 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) It calls for pointed notice that in many of the writ petitions a substantial part of the challenge was also levelled against Section 18(7), (8) and (9) of the Act which lay down the preconditions for presenting an appeal against the order of the prescribed authority under the Act. However, at the time of the hearing it was frankly conceded that this aspect of the case now stood concluded against the petitioners by the exhaustive Division Bench judgment of this Court in Sri Chand v. State of Haryana, 1978-80 Pun LR 660. No reference to this aspect of the averments, in the writ petitions is hence called for.