CHANDER PAL SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of the present writ petition, the petitioners have prayed for the following reliefs:-

(2.) The case of the petitioners is that their predecessor-in-interest late Shri Sardar Jagat Singh was displaced from West Pakistan on account of partition of the country. As a result of said displacement, predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners had no alternative except to settle at Shimla. Late Smt. Man Kaur (maternal grandmother of the petitioners) filed civil writ petition bearing No. 2633 of 1995 for allotment of land on the ground that they were displaced persons on account of partition of the country. This writ petition was disposed of by this Court with the direction to the respondents to process and settle the claim of the petitioners within a period of two months in terms of order dtd. 8/12/2014. The decision was challenged by way of LPA No. 168 of 2015, which was decided on 19/7/2016. In compliance to the judgment passed by this Court, Sub Divisional Officer(Civil)-cum-Settlement Officer, while making reference to the recommendations of State of Himachal Pradesh dtd. 11/11/2016, restricted the recommendations only qua payment of compensation and ignored the claim of the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners for allotment of land out of the pool area. In these circumstances, on 16/11/2016, the petitioners made a representation and submitted that they were not interested in monetary compensation but are interested in allotment of property. Another representation was made on 22/3/2017, in pursuance whereof, Sub Divisional Officer, Shimla, wrote a letter to the Joint Secretary (R&R) to the Government of Himachal Pradesh, for reconsideration of the matter. This was followed by communication dtd. 14/6/2017, in terms whereof, Joint Secretary (Revenue) to the Government of Himachal Pradesh informed the Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Shimla, that monetary compensation already stood sanctioned by the government on 24/1/2017. The petitioners made representation against the said communication, however, as respondents did not pay heed to the requests of the petitioners, hence the present writ petition.

(3.) In terms of the reply filed by the respondents-State, the petition has been opposed inter alia on the ground that predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners, namely, Smt. Man Kaur, issued a legal notice through counsel, in terms whereof she claimed payment of Rs.34,000.00 w.e.f. 9/4/1948 till the date of realization. A copy of the legal notice has been appended with the reply as Annexure R-1. It is further the stand of the respondent-State that from the very beginning, the claim of the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners was only with regard to payment of Rs.34,000.00and not with regard to allotment of the land. According to the State, the petitioners were raising the claim for allotment of land for the first time, which stood rightly rejected. It was further the stand of the respondent-State that as far as the payment of compensation was concerned, the same was rightly calculated by the respondents vide letter dtd. 11/11/2016 (Annexure R-2), which comes to Rs.3,13,480.00up to October, 2016, qua which approval also stood granted and this was also conveyed to the petitioners vide letter dtd. 5/6/2017 (Annexure R-4). It is further the case of the respondents-State that the petitioners were called upon to provide details of their bank accounts so that payment as per approval could be made but rather than furnishing the bank details, the petitioners initially filed the representations and thereafter, the writ petition.