HAKIM SINGH Vs. DY CUSTODIAN GENERAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for an appropriate writ to quash an order of the Commissioner Jammu setting aside an order of the Provincial Rehabilitation Officer by which the petitioner was allotted ten Kanals of land in village Maralia.

(2.) IT appears that out of the lands held by one Puran Chand the P. R. O. by his order dated 10 -7 -1961 cancelled twenty kanals of land out of which he allotted 10 kanals to the petitioner and 10 kanals to respondent Beli Ram. Thereafter, Puran Chand went up in revision to the Commissioner against the order of P. R. O. but the revision application was filed only against Beli Ram and not against Hakim Singh. In other words, although the respondent Puran Chand filed a revision against the order of P. R. O. in its entirety yet he did not make the petitioner a party in revision for reasons best known to him. The Commissioner also did not take any steps to issue notice to the petitioner and without hearing the petitioner he set aside the order of P. R. O. including the allotment which had been made to the petitioner. The petitioner has come up before this Court alleging that as an allotment was made in his favour under the provisions of Cabinet Order No. 578 -C of 1954, the order of allotment could not have been set aside by the Commissioner behind the back of the petitioner and without giving him an opportunity to support the order under which the lands were allotted to him.

(3.) IN these circumstances, therefore, the contention of the Advocate General is rejected.