MANGRU SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE proviso to sub -section (1) of Section 6 of the Bihar Public Land Encroachment Act, 1956 provides that if any lendless person encroaches upto twelve and half decimals of public land before the 10th October, 1955 no action shall be taken against him under the said Act. The explanation to the proviso appended thereto provides that landless person means a cerson whose source of livelihood is agriculture or agricultural Labour and who either does not possess any land or does not possess more than one acre of land. In such view of the matter, while the Act granted appropriate authority to the Collector to remove encroachments, it made the Collector obliged not to remove a person who is a landless person and whose source of livelihood is agriculture or agricultural labour and who has encroached a public land up to twelve and half decimals before 10th October, 1955.

(2.) IN the instant case, the petitioners have produced on record a settlement made in their favour by the then landlords which came into existence much before October, 1955. In such view of the matter, there was evidence on record to show that the petitioners have encroached upon the lands in question much prior to 10th October, 1955. If this was to be disputed, in a summary proceeding as envisaged under the Act, the same could not be sorted out. The matter ought to have been dealt with in an appropriate manner after recording appropriate evidence which is permissible only in a full -fledged suit. There is no dispute, for there is no contrary finding, that none of the petitioners have encroached beyond twelve and half decimals of land, although there is a report that some of the petitioners are in occupation of more than that limit, but the fact remains that in the order impugned there is nothing to show that the said report was accepted. The petitioners are villagers and it is not the contention in any of the orders passed in the encroachment proceeding or in the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the State that any of the petitioners livelihood is not agriculture or agricultural Labour or that they have any other land apart from the encroached land. In such view of the matter, it appears to me that the Collector has acted beyond the power granted to him by the Statute while touching the encroachments made by the petitioners. The action on the part of the Collector is ultra -vires his authority.

(3.) THIS disposes of the writ petition.