HASHIM IBRAHIM SALEJI Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question in this Rule is whether the learned Additional District Judge of Howrah should have joined the present petitioners as parties in the proceeding resulting from a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act. The case related to the acquisition of a certain land which it is now admitted formed part of a wakf estate. The declaration for its acquisition was made in the year 1918, and the second opposite party Ismail Ibrahim Saleji preferred a claim to the compensation money alleging that it was his "ancestral purchased niskar land." He appears to have been an undischarged insolvent, and in consequence of this the Official Assignee was joined with him the proceeding in the Court of the Collector; and on the 24th January 192 the award was made by the Collector ii the joint names of the Opposite Party No. 2 and the Official Assignee. On the 22 February, 1924 the Official Assignee affirmed to a petition to the effect that he had on investigation discovered that the property was in fact a wakf estate and that the present Opposite Party No. 2 was not personally interested in it he represented that he, as Official Assignee had therefore no interest in the matter and that he desired to withdraw from the proceeding.

(2.) It so happened that this petition was not presented to the Collector until the 23rd December 1924. In the meanwhile the present Oppoiitj Party No. 2 had presented a petition to the Collector in which he also stated that the property in question was owned and possessed by two wakf estates, namely, "Ibrahim Soloman and Company Wakf Estate" and "Ibrahim Saleji Wakf Estate," and that he managed the property as one of the matwallis of the two wakf estates, and asked that the Official Assignee's name should be removed from the list of claimants. In the same petition the Opposite Party No. 2 asked the Collector to make a reference to the civil Court under Section 18 of the Act. that is the reference with which we are at present concerned.

(3.) On the 27 July 1925 other persons alleging themselves to be other matwallis of the estate made a petition to the Additional District Judge of Hooghly asking that they should be joined as parties to the reference. It was then stated that as the result of limitation on the Original Side of this Court, a scheme had been settled under which this wakf estate was placed under the management of seven matwallis. The present petitioners are four of the persons so appointed. The Opposite Party No. 2 is another. One is said to have retired from his mutwalliship, and the remaining one has appeared at the hearing of this Rule and has stated that he also has resigned his office and that he wishes to be discharged from these proceedings. He is Opposite Party No. 3.