RAM DEVA Vs. RAJASTHAN STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are three similar petitions by certain tenants of certain agricultural lands in Alwar District under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India. All of them are directed against inter alia the State of Rajasthan. To the petition No. 97 of 1951 Naib Tehsildar and Resettlement Tehsildar of Govindgarh Sub-Tehsil in District Alwar and Bachan Singh & Hari Singh of Sub-Tehsil Govindgarh hereinafter to be referred to as "new lessees" have also been made parties. To the petitions Nos. 100 and 115 of 1951, besides the State of Rajasthan, the S. D. O. Resettlement, Alwar District and Naib-Tehsildar, Resettlement of Tehsil Mandawar, have also been made parties.

(2.) THE case of all these petitioners in their petitions is that they had been tenants of lands given in their petitions for many years and were recorded as such in Revenue Records. THEir landholders migrated to Pakistan after the partition of India. THEy held these lands as tenants upto May, 1951, when the Tehsildar, Resettlement and Naib-Tehsildar Sub-Tehsil Mandawar in case No. 97 of 1951 and S. D. O. Resettlement Alwar District and Resettlement Naib-Tehsildar Mandawar Tehsil in the other two cases took illegal measures to eject the petitioners without serving any notice on them to show cause why they should not be ejected. THE lands in question were never declared evacuee properties and the Resettlement Tehsildar and Naib-Tehsildar Govindgarh in one case and the Resettlement S. D. O. Alwar District and Resettlement Naib-Tehsildar Mandawar in the other two were not appointed Custodian or Deputy or Assistant Custodian till the dates they made orders of ejectment of the petitioners. Even a Custodian or Deputy or Assistant Custodian had no right to cancel or vary the terms of a lease granted by his ownself or to evict a lessee without serving upon him a notice under rule 14 of Administration of Evacuee Property Rules to show cause. THE ejectment of a tenant was also illegal unless under certain conditions given in Rajasthan Protection of Tenants Ordinance or under sec. 180 of Alwar State Land Revenue Code which did not obtain in the present cases. It is, therefore, complained that the actions of these authorities were illegal and without jurisdiction. THE petitioners, therefore, pray for writ of prohibition against the opposite party restraining them from ejecting the petitioners or cancelling, varying the terms of their leases or terminating them and allotting them to new lessees. It has also been prayed that any such orders made be quashed by a writ of certiorary, or any other writ, direction or order, suitable under the circumstances of the case be issued.