Jaswant Singh (Major) vs Financial Commissioner Haryana

I. S. Tiwana, J. (Oral)

The ejectment of the respondenttenants was ordered by the Assistant Collector 1st Grade, Naraingarh on August 17, 1966 after recording a categorical finding that their landlord was a small landowner. However, a stipulation was made in this order that before actually dispossessing or ejecting these tenants, they shall be resettled on some other surplus area. This order was not appealed against and thus it assumed finality. On May 19, 1967, the landlord sold the land in question to the present petitioners and also specifically assigned his rights under the decree passed against the respondenttenants. It is the case of the petitioners that while ordering their ejectment as a result of the execution proceedings these tenants were offered certain surplus area for resettling them but they declined to accept that offer. They have placed on record a copy of the order passed by the Director, Surplus Area, on February 15, 1968, saying that since these tenants had declined to accept the allotment of surplus area the same was cancelled. The Assistant Collector ordered the ejectment of the respondents. It deserves to be mentioned here that these tenants had earlier filed a civil suit on October 9, 1967 to preempt the sale made by their original landlord in favour of the present petitioners but they were non suited by this Court. The implication of this litigation is that they accepted the validity of the sale made in favour of the present petitioners. During the course of execution proceedings the tenants raised the following contentions :

(i) Since their original landlord had transferred his ownership rights, the transferees, i.e., present petitioners were not competent to seek their ejectment; and

(ii) in the absence of resettling them on any surplus area they could not actually be dispossessed or ejected from the suit land.

These objections, however, were rejected by the Assistant Collector vide his order dated July 13, 1972. On appeal by the tenants the Collector set aside the order of the Assistant Collector vide his order dated August 3, 1972. The landlord''s appeal and revision before the Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner respectively were dismissed. Though a number of contentions had been raised before the Financial Commissioner by the respondenttenants, including the two already referred to above in order to sustain the orders passed by the Collector and the Commissioner against the petitioners, yet the Financial Commissioner chose to dismiss the petition of the landlord petitioners on the short ground that they being transferees from the original landowner could not eject the tenants in the absence of their having established that they too were small landowners as was the case with the original landowner. This led to the filing of the present petition impugning the order of the Financial Commissioner.

Having heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length I find that it is difficult to sustain the order of the Financial Commissioner. It is not disputed before me that the liability of the respondenttenants to be ejected stood finally determined with the passing of the decree of ejectment against them by the Assistant Collector. To whom this land had been transferred by the landlord or his rights under the decree had been assigned, cannot possibly lead to the redetermination of the liability of the respondentstenants to be ejected. The rights of the parties including the liability of the respondenttenants to be ejected from the suit land stood crystallised by the passing of the ejectment decree against them. Strange as it may seem, when a plea was raised by the petitioners before the Financial Commissioner as to how and at what stage they could prove after the passing of the decree in question that they were the small landowners, the Financial Commissioner chose to repel this contention with the observation that "even if it is correct that there was no opportunity for the latter to establish their status, they cannot have the advantage of the eviction of tenants till it has been shown that they too had the status of small landowners''''. The Financial Commissioner appears to have been impressed by the fact that the basic concept underlying the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act is that it is only a small landowner who can eject his tenants. This may be so but this aspect of the matter stood settled and finalised when the ejectment decree was granted against the respondenttenants as a result of the proceedings before the Assistant Collector.

Thus for the reasons recorded above, the impugned order of the Financial Commissioner dated November 23, 1977 (Annexure P.9), is set aside. But since some of the contentions raised by the respondenttenants and more particularly with regard to the allotment and cancellation of the surplus area for their resettlement have remained undecided, the case essentially has to be sent back to the Financial Commissioner for decision on those points. In the light of this while allowing this petition and setting aside order Annexure P. 9 as already indicated, I send the case back to him for deciding it afresh in accordance with law and the observations made above. The parties through their counsel are directed to appear before the Financial Commissioner on June 10, 1983. I pass no order as to costs.