Balbir Singh vs State of Punjab

S.S. Kang, J. (Oral)

Balbir Singh has filed this writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for the issuance of a writ of certiorari quashing the orders of ejectment of the petitioner under section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 (hereinafter called ''the Act'') and quashing sections 13 and 13B of the Act as ultra vires.

A broadbrush factual drop will help illumine the pristinely legal issues raised in this writ petition.

The Gram Panchayat of the petitioner''s village respondent No. 4 initiated proceedings for the ejectment of the petitioner from the land in dispute before the Collector on the allegations that he was in unauthorised occupation of the shamilat land. The petitioner contested these proceedings and inter alia pleaded that the land in question was not covered by the definition of shamilat deh. It fell within the purview of subsection (g) of section 2 of the Act. The petitioner and his forefathers were in occupation thereof since times immemorial after the shamilat deh of the village had been partitioned. They were not paying any lease money for the use and occupation thereof and had been cultivating the Collector accepted the same and ordered the petitioner''s ejectment. Dissatisfied, the petitioner went up in appeal before the Commissioner and the same was also dismissed. Still dissatisfied he has come up with this writ petition.

The writ petition has been resisted by the Gram Panchayatrespondent No. 4, which has put in a written statement broadly controverting the pleas raised in the writ petition. It was denied that the land in dispute was not shamilat deh or that the same had been ever partitioned and had remained in possession of the answering respondent till 1968. The shamilat land of the village was not partitioned. So, there was no question of petitioner''s forefathers being in exclusive possession and cultivating the same as its owners. The Khasra numbers mentioned in the Jamabandis produced were not traced to the new Khasra numbers assigned to the fields in the village after consolidation. It was asserted that uphill 1968, the Gram Panchayat was in possession of the land in dispute. The petitioner had filed a suit for possession in 1968, and had managed a decree in his favour in collusion with the then Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat. The decree was passed against the Gram Panchayat. The answeringrespondent was not aware of the contents of the compromise.

Mr. Rajiv Kataria, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has raised two contentions before me :

Firstly, that on suit filed by the petitioner the Civil Court had passed a decree on 27.5.1968, decreeing the suit of the petitioner on the statements of the parties. This decree had been passed before the introduction of section 13B in the Principal Act by Act 19 of 1976, which has provided that the decrees passed by the Civil Courts shall not be binding on the Gram Panchayat. The decree was binding on the Gram Panchayat. In support of this contention he has placed a reliance on a recent Division Bench decision of this Court in Gurnam Singh and others v. Joint Director Panchayats, Punjab and others, 1984 PLJ 580, and an earlier Division Bench decision in Baljinder Singh and another v. The Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, Guhla and other, 1983 PLJ 116, interpreting a pari materia provision engrafted on the Principal Act by the State Legislature, Haryana, fell for consideration. It has, indeed, been held in these decisions that the provisions of section 13B of the Act do not have any effect on the decrees passed by the Civil Courts before the enactment of section 13B of the Act in 1976. However, in the present case, decree (Annexure P2) does not help the petitioner. It shows that the petitioner had filed a suit for possession of the land described in the heading of the plaint against the Gram Panchayat. The parties entered into a compromise and made statements in Court on the basis of which the suit was decreed. Neither the statements nor the judgment in the case have been produced. On the basis of the decreesheet all that can be said is that the petitioner''s suit for possession against the Gram Panchayat had been decreed on 27th May, 1968, but this decree does not determine the title of petitioner. It has not been said therein that the Panchayat conceded that the petitioner was the owner of the land in dispute. The petitioner had been dispossessed therefrom and his claim for possession of the same had been conceded. On the basis of this decree, the petitioner can legitimately claim that he had been put into possession of the land in dispute after the passing of the decree in 1968. This to some extent goes against the claim of the petitioner and his forefathers that they had been in possession of the suit land since times immemorial and in any case for more than 12 years before the proceedings had started. So even if it is correct as canvassed by Mr. Kataria that provisions of section 13B of the Act do not rule out of consideration the decree (P2), the same is not helpful to him.

The second contention is equally untenable. The vires of section 13D of the Act as introduced in the State of Haryana had been challenged in Baljinder Singh''s case (supra). The language of section 13B as introduced by Punjab Act 19 of 1976 is pari materia with section 13D as enacted by the Haryana Legislature. The Division Bench did not maintain the challenge and declared that the provisions had no retrospective operation. That ratio squarely applies to section 13B of the Act also. It has not been argued before me that section 13 of the Act is unconstitutional.

The proceedings for the petitioner''s ejectment are pending before the competent Authority. No decision has been taken so far because of the stay orders passed by this Court. The petitioner can urge the points raised in this writ petition before the Collector, who is seized of the matter. It is no gainsaying the fact that the decisions in Baljinder Singh''s case and Gurnam Singh''s case (supra) are binding on the Collector also.

It may be mentioned here that any observations made in this judgment shall not be taken into account by any authority.

With these observations, the writ petition is dismissed, but with no order as to costs.