MUNSHI RAM Vs. KULDIP SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision petition against the order of the trial court transferring the suit to the Collector concerned u/s 19 of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act 1976. The suit in not based purely upon possession dispossession. Possession in the suit has been claimed only as a consequential relief, the principal relief being a declaration to the effect that the sale deed executed by Chattar Singh in favour of Munshi Ram is null and void as not being supported by legal necessity. The controversy giving rise to the principal relief is not the one which may be tried by the Collector under the provisions of the aforesaid Act, or the Rules framed thereunder. The trial court should have, therefore, first decided the validity of the sale deed and all other issues arising in the suit and then transferred it to the Collector after giving, its own findings on those issues for the purpose of granting the consequential relief of possession. The collector under the provisions of the Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976 could only adjudicate upon that part of the suit which related purely to possession. As there is no provision in the Act or the Rules made thereunder under which the Collector is empowered to adjudicate upon the legality or otherwise of the sale deed, which has been challenged under the Personal law of the parties on the ground that the same is not supported by legal necessity.

(2.) I , therefore, allow this revision petition, set aside the order of the trial court transferring the case to the Collector and remit the case back to it with a direction that it shall proceed to dispose of the same in accordance with the observations made above.