Gobinda (deceased) Rep. By L.Rs. and others. vs State of Punjab and others .

I.S. Tiwana, J. (Oral)

This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is by the tenants whose application under section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (for short, the Act) has been dismissed. The undisputed facts which furnish the background of the case are as follows.

Area in possession of the petitioner was found to be surplus in the hands of one Nagina Singh, predecessorininterest of the present respondents. The petitioners were resettled on this land in Rabi, 1964. They initiated the present proceedings under section 18 of the Act for the purchase of this land on 2641972 by filing applications in form `Q''. The Assistant Collector as a result of the enquiry that followed, found that the petitioners satisfied the requirements of section 18 of the Act and allowed those applications. The appeals filed by the respondents, successors of Nagina Singh, were dismissed by the Collector. The respondents then assailed this order of the Collector in revision before the Commissioner and the later held that since Nagina Singh, the original landowner had died before the filing of the applications by the petitioners for the purchase of the land in question, they were not entitled to the same as no land remained surplus in the hands of the successors of Nagina Singh and they had become small landowners. Another factor which weighed with the Commissioner for nonsuiting the petitioners was that they had not been paying rent to the landowners regularly. He, therefore, made a recommendation to the Financial Commissioner vide the impugned order, Annexure P2, for setting aside the orders passed by the Collector and the Assistant Collector. The Financial Commissioner after hearing the learned counsel for the parties accepted the recommendation made by the Commissioner and by his impugned order, Annexure P3 set aside the orders of the Collector and the Assistant Collector and sent the case back to the Assistant Collector for going into the question as to whether the petitioners had been regularly paying the rent to the respondentlandowners.

The sole submission of Mr. L.K. Sood, learned counsel for the petitioners before me now is that the learned Financial Commissioner appears to be completely oblivious of the provisions of section 10B of the Act which provision has otherwise been held to be not applicable to the facts of this case by the Commissioner. As the facts are not in dispute, I find that the above noted contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners has merit. In the light of the above noted section (10B), it is not clear to me as to how the death of a particular big landowner would in any way affect the area found surplus with him after the same had been utilised during his life time. With the utilisation of the area as happened in this case in Rabi 1964, the big landowner stood completely divested of his interest in the land and the successors of that big landowner cannot claim any benefit on account of the death of the original landowner. A bare reading of section 10B makes it more than clear that when succession opens after the surplus area or any part thereof has been utilised under clause (a) of section 10A, the saving provisions of clause (b) of that section in favour of an heir of the big landowner do not apply to the area so utilised. Thus it is abundantly clear that the petitioners who had been settled on the surplus area of Nagina Singh in Rabi 1964, could not be deprived of their right under section 18 of the Act on account of the death of that landowner even if the same had taken place before the filing of the applications by the petitioners. For this view of mine I seek support from an earlier judgment of this Court in Krishna Kumar and others V. Financial Commissioner, Taxation, Punjab and others, 1981 P.L.J. 137. The learned counsel for the respondents has not been able to point out any distinguishing feature in the present case than what has been ruled in the above noted judgment. The learned counsel, however, contends that the other part of the impugned order of the Financial Commissioner relating to the remand of the case to the subordinate authorities for holding an enquiry into the fact as to whether the petitioners have been paying rent to the respondentlandowners regularly deserves to be sustained. I do not find any merit in this contention either. The fact whether the petitionertenants have been paying rent regularly or not, does not in any way affect their right under section 18 of the Act. This section does not lay down that only that tenant who has been paying rent regularly to his landlord would be entitled to purchase the land in his occupation in case he satisfies the other requirements of law.

For the reasons recorded above, I allow this petition, set aside the impugned orders of the Financial Commissioner and the Commissioner, Annexures P.3 and P.2 dated 17101975 and 1471975 respectively, and restore that of the Collector allowing purchase applications of the petitioners. I, however, pass no order as to costs.