ISHWARI SINGH Vs. PRITAM KANWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal preferred by the parent jagirdar against the order of the Additional Jagir Commissioner, Jaipur, dated 28. 5. 62 ordering the payment of maintenance allowance of Rs. 200/- per month provisionally to his mother, respondent Smt. Pritam Kanwarji leaving it to be determined finally thereafter at the time of the final award. The contention of the appellant is that such an order could not have been passed by the learned Additional Jagir Commissioner without letting him have an opportunity of being heard and that the order was even otherwise defective and unjustified. The cross-objections have been filed against this very appeal contending that the learned Additional Jagir Commissioner should have fixed a maintenance allowance of Rs. 279/-per mensem, which she had been getting, instead of Rs. 200/- only as he had done. A brief reference to the facts shall be useful here. The jagir has been resumed about 4 to 5 years back. The claim has not yet been finalised, perhaps not even determined provisionally. As for the grant of the maintenance allowance under dispute, the matter was under enquiry. The evidence of the respondent had been concluded. The case had been adjourned for the recording of the evidence of the appellant. On the date the case was so adjourned, it appears after the adjournment, the respondent filed an application that she should be granted a maintenance allowance as an ad interim measure. It is on this application that the learned Additional Jagir Commissioner has, without hearing the parties in any manner whatsoever, passed the order which is impugned before us. The office note obtained by the learned Additional Jagir Commissioner before passing his order does go to show that the appellant had been getting Rs. 279/- per mensem when the jagir was resumed and that she had not been granted, although about 4 years had elapsed since, any month by way of maintenance allowance. It also showed the appellant too had drawn by way of interim compensation a much less amount than what he could have drawn, thereby perhaps giving a hint that there were available funds to be paid to the respondent out of the interim amount of compensation so payable. The order does not contain the section under which it was purported to have been passed. Nor does it say that it has been allowed as an interim measure. It employs the expression "provisional" leaving the matter to be determined finally in due course. It is in this context that the whole matter has to be examined and determined.

(2.) NOW, Sec. 36 of the Rajasthan Land Reforms and Resumption of Jagirs Act, 1952 provides for the grant of interim compensation to a jagirdar if his claim is not finalised within six months of the resumption of his jagir. The Government is authorised to impose conditions on such payments. They may include the condition of obtaining a security or indemnity bond. Under these very circumstances, Sec. 36a authorises the grant of a maintenance allowance on an application made in that behalf by way of interim measure. Sec. 36 provides that the interim instalment of compensation paid to the jagirdar shall include the amount of maintenance allowance besides the share of the co-sharer also. It means when the interim instalment is to be paid, the amount of maintenance, if payable, to that extent is to be deducted therefrom unless it is shown that the jagirdar himself will pay such amount of maintenance to the person claiming it. An interim maintenance allowance can, therefore, be paid if the claim remains undecided for a period of more than six months.