Manohar Lal Ratna vs Union of India (UOI) and Others

Inder Dev Dua, J.—This writ petition has been placed before us in pursuance of an order of reference passed by my learned brother Mahajan, J., inter alia on account of Single Bench decisions Which were considered not to be reconcilable those decisions being in Nand Lal v. The Regional Settlement Commissioner. (Civil Writ No. 1135 of 1957) decided by Gurnam Singh, J., on 9th May, 1958, and Jaswant Singh Gyani v. The Regional Settlement Commissioner (Civil Writ No. 1076 of 1958) decided by Grover, J., on 18th May, 1959. The other point; necessitating reference has, however, not been presssed.

The facts giving rise to the present proceedings as stated in writ petition are that an evacuee property No. BII/236 at Ludhiana was requisitioned by the District Magistrate, Ludhiana, under the Punjab Requisitioning and Acquisition Act and was allotted by the District Majistrate to Kesho Nath Raheja Respondent No. 3 in this Court who was at that time in the Government service and posted at Ludhiana. Later he was transferred to Simla and thereafter to Chandigarh. According to the averments in the writ petition he was no longer in occupation of the above property after his transfer from Ludhiana. On acquisition of the said property by the Central Government u/s 12 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and'' Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, the question of disposal of the property arose before the Rehabilitation authorities. As this property did not stand allotted in favour of anyone, it was auctioned and the Petitioner gave a bid of Rs. 12,000 which being the highest bid was accepted. On behalf of Respondent No. 3 his son gave, a bid for Rs. 11,500 The sale in favour of the Petitioner was duly confirmed, the letter of confirmation having been received by the Petitioner on 7th March, 1958. Respondent No. 3 preferred an appeal against the order of the District Rent and Managing Officer accepting the Petitioner''s bid and, it was urged that the property in question should not have been sold by auction. It was rejected by the Assistant Settlement Commissioner, but on revision the Chief Settlement Commissioner reversed the order. A further revision by the Petitioner to the Central Government u/s 33 of the Act was rejected. It is in these circumstances that the matter has come before us and the only ground on which the impugned order has been assailed is that Respondent No. 3 could not be considered to be in sole occupation of the house in question so as to attract Rule 25 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Rules, 1955. In the written statement by Respondent No. 3 it has been asserted that after his transfer to Simla his family and children who were studying at Ludhiana remained in this house with the result that the house remained in the occupation, of the answering Respondent. Indeed the department has also admitted his occupation by charging rent from him up to 30th September, 1955. According to this written statement the District Rent and Managing Officer had illegally and improperly auctioned the house and the said auction has been rightly set aside by Respondent No. 2.

The Petitioner''s Learned Counsel has submitted that this case is covered by the decision of Grover, J., in Jaswant Singh Gyani v. The Regional Settlement etc. (Civil Writ No. 1976 of 1958) decided on 18th May, 1959. In that case Jaswant Singh, had in June, 1948, been allotted a house at Hoshiarpur as a displaced person on payment of a rent of Rs. 6 per mensem. Since he was serving as a Gyani teacher in a Government School, on his transfer to Ludhiana he was allotted the disputed house by the District Magistrate in July, 1957, of which he had been paying rent. It is this house which he wanted to be allotted to him under Rules 25 and 26 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Rules, 1955. The Respondents in that case urged that Jaswant Singh Gyani had been allotted a house as a displaced person at Hoshiarpur and that the house at Ludhiana which had been originally requisitioned by the District Magistrate had been allotted to T.N. Kapoor of the Civil Supplies Department and on his transfer it was allotted to Jaswant Singh. On its acquisition by the Central Government u/s 12 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, the requisition had come to an end and that Jaswant Singh''s occupation could not be considered to be authorised. The learned Judge on these pleadings observed that Rule 26 could only be attracted where allottable acquired property is in the sole occupation of a displaced person, who does not hold a verified claim. Jaswant Singh had, according to the learned Judge, not been allotted the property at Ludhiana in the capacity of a displaced person but the same had been allotted to him under a misapprehension that that property was still under requisition and that it could be allotted to him as a Government servant. Rule 26 was thus held inapplicable to an unauthorised occupation or "such occupation as is the result of an allotment on some ground other than the one on which an evacuee property could be allotted to a displaced person". The only property allotted to Jaswant Singh, as a displaced person was the one at Hoshiarpur whereas the house at Ludhiana had, been allotted to him in the capacity of a Government servant. The contention that Jaswant Singh was paying the rent regularly which was being accepted by the office of the Regional Settlement Commissioner was negatived because in the opinion of the learned Judge this was being done all the time on the assumption that the requisitioning was continuing although it may have ended when the property was acquired by the Central Government. With these observations the writ petition was dismissed. A Letters Patent Appeal was preferred against this order, and it came up for hearing before G.D. Khosla, C.J., and Mahajan, J., in August, 1960. Whether under Rule 26 the sole occupation should be as a result of an allotment by the Rehabilitation Department to a displaced person as such was not considered by the Bench for the decision of the controversy, but Rule 26 was held not to confer any right on the Petitioner to claim the transfer of the house in question.

The order of Gurnam Singh, J. in Nand Lal v. The Regional Settlement Commissioner (Civil Writ No. 1135 of 1957) decided in May, 1958, has on the other hand been relied upon by the Respondents. In that case a house at Ludhiana belonging to a Muslim evacuee had been requisitioned by the District Magistrate for Nand Lal''s residence. Subsequently this property vested in the Custodian who allotted the house to Nand Lal, on a monthly rent of Rs. 12 from 15th of September, 1947; The Petitioner regularly paid the rent till 23rd November, 1956. Thereafter it was acquired by the Central Government and by a letter the District Rent and Managing Officer offered the same as allottable acquired property in Petitioner''s occupation for transfer to him under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954. Suddenly the District Rent and Managing Officer wrote to the Petitioner to appear before him on 28th August, 1957, in connection with the transfer of the property, on which date he did appear and produced the original allotment order. He heard nothing thereafter till November, 1957, when he received a communication intimating that the property had been requisitioned by the District Magistrate and, therefore, the offer to him had been cancelled, The Petitioner then wrote to the Regional Settlement Commissioner pointing out that the property stood de-requisitioned and was allottable to displaced occupants. Nothing was heard in reply to his representation. In December, 1957, the property was ordered to be requisitioned which necessitated writ proceedings in this Court. Gurnam Singh, J., set aside the order of auction observing that if the property was in the sole occupation of a displaced person and it was allottable property, then he is entitled to have it transferred to him and it is wholly unnecessary that it should originally have been allotted to the occupier by the-department.

After hearing the Learned Counsel for the parties, in our opinion this writ petition must fail. It is agreed at the bar that the present case is covered by Rule 25 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Rules, 1955, according to which where an Applicant for payment of compensation is in sole occupation of an acquired property which is an allowable property, such property may be transferred to him in lieu of the compensation payable to him under the Act. Reference at the bar has been made to a Bench decision of this Court in Sodhi Harbakhsh Singh v. The Central Government and Ors. ILR (1962) P&H 712 : 1962 P.L.R. 629, where Rules 25 and 26 came up for consideration. Dulat, J., who prepared the main judgment of the Bench, after reproducing Rule 26, observed that it was somewhat doubtful whether the Petitioner before that Bench could legitimately be called a displaced person not holding a verified claim but without pursuing the matter further and treating the Petitioner there to be a non-claimant the question was whether Rule 26 casts any obligation on the authorities to transfer allottable property to a non-claimant in whose occupation such property may happen to be or whether the rule merely vests a power in the authority concerned to make the transfer or not according to the circumstances. The counsel for the Petitioner canvassed in favour of the word "may" occurring in Rule 26 being treated as "must". In support of this contention, reliance was placed on two unreported decisions of this Court, one by Shamsher Bahadur J. in Shri Ramji Dass v. The Ministry of Rehabilitation, Government of India, Civil Writ No. 40 of 1960, and another by Mehar Singh, J., in S. Karam Singh v. The Chief Settlement Commissioner, Civil Writ No. 685 of 1960, in which the earlier Single Bench decision was followed. The unreported decisions were, however, concerned with the construction of Rule 25 and Dulat, J., felt that the construction of Rule 25 was of no assistance to the construction of Rule 26 which deals with another category of persons and where the context is substantially different. The word "may", according to Dulat, J., ordinarily conveys an idea of the exercise of discretion and in the context of Rule 26, there appeared to the learned Judge nothing to justify the unusual Construction on the word "may" as suggested. Reading Rules 25 and 26 together, it was expressly observed that the expression "may" used in Rule 26 could not be taken as "must". The decision of Gurnam Singh, J., in Nand Lal''s case is, in my opinion, no authority on the directory or mandatory nature of Rule 26, for it neither contains any illuminating discussion nor any helpful reasoning to usefully aid us in the interpretation of Rule 26. It may be remembered that the decision of Grover, J., in Jaswant Singh''s case was unsuccessfully assailed on Letters Patent Appeal in Jaswant Singh v. Regional Settlement Commissioner Letters Patent Appeal No. 168 of 1959 and the Bench took the view that Rule 26 does not confer any right on the claimant and it is open to the authorities whether or not to transfer the property to the occupant.

In view of what has been stated above, it is clear that the decision of Gurnam Singh, J. in Nand Lal''s case is no authority for the proposition that Rule 26 is mandatory. In case, however, that judgment is open to be so construed, then, in our opinion, it does not lay down a correct rule of law.

The result, therefore, is that this writ petition fails and is hereby dismissed but without costs.