Paul Singh vs State of Punjab

N.K. Sodhi, J.—This judgment will dispose of a bunch of 19 writ petitions No. 1426, 2471, 2911, 3407, 4083, 4467, 5501 of 1985; 1476, 2714, 3982, 3983 of 1986; 1970 of 1987; 1559 of 1988; 4117,4118, 4925, 14222 of 1989 and 1556, 3357 of 1990, as the learned counsel for the parties are agreed that common questions of law and fact arise in them In order to appreciate the controversy between the parties, the facts are being taken from civil writ petition No. 1426 of 1985.

The petitioners are all landowners within the revenue estate of Gumtala, suburban, Tehsil and District Amritsar. The Amritsar Improvement Trust, Amritsar (for short `the Trust'') framed a Development Scheme under the provisions of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922 (hereinafter called ''the Act'') known as the Ajnala Road Expansion Scheme which covered an area measuring about 537 acres of land including the land of the petitioners. This Scheme was first notified in the official gazette on 21.4.1972 under Section 36 of the Act and the same was later sanctioned by the State Government under Section 41. The sanction of the Government was published under Section 42 of the Act on 19.2.1973 and thereafter the Trust was to execute the same. The Land Acquisition Collector gave his award on 4.5.1974. The Trust then through different notices including the one issued on March 21, 1980 invited applications on the prescribed forms for allotment of lots to the ''local displaced persons'' under the Scheme. It is common case of the parties that all the petitioners filed their applications and deposited a sum of Rs. 500/ each in cash as application money within the prescribed time. The petitioners who claim to be the ''local displaced persons'' under the Scheme were not allotted the plots and when some plots were about to be allotted to persons lower in preference to the petitioners, the present writ petitions were filed and the Motion Bench while admitting the writ petitions directed the respondents to reserve a plot for each of the petitioners in case they succeeded. It is also not in dispute that after reserving some plots for the displaced persons, presumably under the orders of this Court, the Trust through another public notice which appeared in the Daily Indian Express dated 27, 1985 invited applications from the general public for the allotment of residential plots by draw of plots on reserved price under the Scheme.

In exercise of its powers under Section 74 of the Act the Trust has framed the Amritsar Improvement Trust ''Land Disposal Rules, 1951 (hereinafter called the 1951 Rules). These rules besides defining a `local displaced person'' have made provision to offer for sale plots of land to different categories of persons in the order of preference stated in Rule 6(1) of the 1951 Rules. Rules 2(b), 6 and 7(1) which are relevant for our purposes are reproduced hereunder for facility of reference:

2(b) Local displaced person means a person whose own property has been acquired by the Trust for the execution of the Scheme or who had been a tenant of a property under the Scheme for a period of not less than one year prior to the first publication of the Scheme by the Trust and includes a person who is a claimant of allotable acquired evacuee property coming within the Scheme.

(1) The land available for sale may, in the first place, be offered for sale to

(i) Departments of Punjab Government, local authorities and public undertakings, bodies of public utility project, bodies duly registered for Public Purposes or public, charitable and religious institutions. If any land is reserved for such purposes in the scheme;

(ii) Local displaced persons in the following order :

(a) Owner occupiers and occupier claimants of allotable acquired evacuee properties in whose favour allotment of such properties has actually been made by the Central Government;

(b) Absentee landlords;

(c) Tenants in order of maximum period of tenancy;

(iii) Local displaced persons of other Schemes of the Trust to whom a plot could not be given by the Trust in the order specified in clause (ii) above;

(iv) Members of the Armed Forces who in their own name or in the names of their husbands/wives or dependent children do not own a building or building site in India;

(v) Registered House Building Cooperative Societies of the employees of Punjab Government, local authorities and public undertakings; Provided that offers for plots from categories under clauses (iv) and (v) mentioned above will be considered only in respect of residential plots.

(vi) Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly hailing from Punjab and elected as such from Amritsar District who do not own any building or building site anywhere in India in their own name or in the name of their husband/wife or dependent children provided that each such member shall be entitled to allotment of residential plot only outside the walled city not exceeding an area 1000 square yards and 500 square yards respectively.

(2) Not more than one plot of land shall be sold to a person covered by one or more of the categories referred to above.

(3) Only after the claims of the categories of Persons referred to above have been dealt with, the remaining plots, if any, under the scheme shall be sold by auction or tender.

(1) The Chairman shall ask the Lands Officer to issue a public notice in an appropriate form in the manner prescribed by rules 10 and 11, inviting applications from local displaced persons in Form `A'' and from Departments of Punjab Government, local authorities and public undertakings, bodies of public utility project, bodies duly registered for public purposes or public, charitable and religious institutions, members of the Armed Forces and registered House Building Cooperative Societies of the employees of Punjab Government, local authorities and public undertakings, in Form A1 or Form `A'' as the case may be. Such notice shall state the date by which applications will be received, which date shall not ordinarily be less than thirty days after the first appearance of the notice."

Since the petitioners were not offered plots by sale in the preferential order prescribed by Rule 6(1) of the 1951 Rules, the present writ petitions were filed.

The stand taken by the Trust in the additional written statement filed on its behalf is that only some of the petitioners were owners of the land in dispute at the time of the'' publication of the Scheme under Section 36 of the Act while others became owners of the land later through inheritance on the death of the original landowners while some others were subsequent transferees through purchase of the acquired land. According to the Trust, all those petitioners who were owners of the land on the date of the publication of the Scheme under Section 36 of the Act and were owners for a continuous period of two years prior to that date were also entitled to the allotment of an alternative plot. The definition of local displaced person was amended in September, 1974 and it is alleged that the petitioners who were covered by the Scheme are governed by the amendment and since they were not the owners of the land for a continuous period of two years before the first publication of the Scheme, they were not entitled to the allotment of any plot. It is not denied that all the petitioners were owners of the land when the Scheme was finally sanctioned by the State Government under Section 41 of the Act and that they continued to be owners thereafter. Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules as it stands after its amendment in September, 1974 reads as under subpara "means a person who is owner of a property acquired by the Trust for the execution of the Scheme and has been such owner for a continuous period of two years immediately before the first publication of the Scheme by the Trust under Section 36 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922."

It may be mentioned at this stage that the State Government in exercise of its power under Section 73 of the Act had framed the Utilization of Land and Allotment of Plots by Improvement Trust Rules, 1975 (hereinafter called the 1975 Rules) and defined a ''local displaced person'' almost in the same terms as to be found in the amended 1951 Rules. These rules provided a criteria for the purposes of allotting alternative sites to displaced persons. The 1975 Rules were later repealed by the Punjab Town Improvement (Utilization of Land and Allotment of Plots) Rules, 1983 (referred to hereinafter as the 1983 Rules) which too have been framed by the State Government. These Rules also define a ''local displaced person'' in almost similar terms as defined under the 1975 Rules and amended Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules. The case of the respondents is that in pursuance of the award delivered by the Land Acquisition Collector on 4.5.1974, the possession of land from the petitioners had been taken on 14.5.1980 and since the acquisition proceedings had not concluded till then, the 1975 Rules and the 1983 Rules were applicable, whereunder the petitioners could not be described as ''local displaced person'' and were therefore, not entitled to the allotment of plots as claimed by them. The contention is that since the petitioners were not the owner of land for a continuous period of two years immediately before the first publication of the Scheme by the Trust under Section 36 of the Act they could not be allotted the plots. As observed earlier the case of the petitioners on the other hand is, that they were governed by the 1951 Rules as they stood prior to their amendment on 9.9.1974 and the Trust was bound to offer for sale a plot of land to each one of them at the reserved price.

Prior to the amendment of Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules, a `local displaced person'' was one whose own property had been acquired by the Trust for the execution of a scheme and it was only to such a person that the Trust was required to offer for sale a plot at the reserved price in the order of preference as referred to in Rule 6(1) of the 1951 Rules. Subrule (2) of Rule 6 makes it clear that not more than one plot of land would be sold to a person covered by one or more of the categories referred to therein. It is clear that the Trust was to offer for sale one lot to each `local displaced person'' but these Rule''s do not tell us about the size of the plot or plots to be offered but looking at the matter in a reasonable way, it would all depend upon the area available with the Trust and the number of the eligible claimants. What appears to have happened is that after the Schemes were first published under Section 36 of the Act, the landowners whose land became the subject matter of acquisition for the execution of those Schemes started transferring their lands in bits to different persons probably with a view to enable each of the transferees to claim separately one plot whereas if the transfers had not been made, the transferor would have been entitled to only one plot. In other words, if the original landowner had not sold his land to different persons, he would have been entitled to one plot in terms of Rule 6(2) but on transferring his land to different persons who may even be his own kith and kin, each transferee started claiming to be a ''local displaced person'' so as to claim a plot separately which was contrary to the 1951 Rules. It was with a view to stop this mischief that the Trust amended the definition of ''local displaced person'' in September, 1974. As already observed earlier, the 1951 Rules only required the Trust to offer not more than one plot to a person who was covered by Rule 6(1) of the Rules but did not provide any criteria in regard to the size of the plot which was to be offered. The State Government in order to supplement the 1951 Rules framed the 1975 Rules providing for the criteria pertaining to saleable area as also the mode of utilisation for purposes of allotment of residential plots. In the year 1983, the 1975 Rules were repealed and replaced by the 1983 Rules which provide more detailed criteria in regard to the allotment of plots to `local displaced persons'' and others.

It was strenuously urged on behalf of the writ petitioner that the relevant date to determine as to whether a person is an owner of the land within the meaning of Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules so as to be entitled to claim an allotment of a plot is the one when he was divested of his ownership and possession of the land taken from him or at least it should be the date when the Scheme was finally sanctioned on 19.2.1973. The argument is that till the possession of the land taken in pursuance of the sanctioned Scheme, the person whose land had been acquired continued to be owner till then and had thus every right to transfer his land whether in parts or in whole. The contention put differently is that the petitioners were all owners of the land on the date when the Scheme was sanctioned and published on 19.2.1973 under Section 42 of the Act and since on that date it was their land which was being acquired by the Trust for the execution of the scheme, they are `local displaced persons within the meaning of the term as defined in Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules and the amendment brought out in this definition in September, 1974 could not apply to their case. The contention though seemingly plausible when examined in depth in the light of the objects of the 1951 Rules read with the amendment brought about in September 1974 have no substance. To decide whether the petitioners could be entitled to the allotment of a plot in terms of 1951 Rules, one will have to keep in view the purpose of the Rules as well as the object for which the amendment was brought about. The primary and foremost task of a Court in interpreting a statute or Rule is to ascertain the intention of Legislature or the Rule making authority, actual or imputed. Having ascertained the intention, the Court must then strive to so interpret the rule as to promote or advance the object and purpose of the enactment and for this purpose, where necessary the Court may even depart from the Rule that plain words should be interpreted according to their plain meaning. In the words of justice Chinnappa Reddy in Girdhari Lal & Sons v. Balbir Nath, 1986(2) RCR(Rent) 361 (SC) : AIR 1986 S.C. 1499, "there need be no meek and mute submission to the plainness of the language. To avoid patent injustice anomaly or absurdity or to avoid invalidation of a law, the Court would be well justified, anomaly or absurdity or to avoid invalidation of a law, the court would be well justified in departing from the so called golden rule of construction so as to give effect to the object and prupose of the enactment by supplementing the written word if necessary." It is a known rule of interpretation that an amendment of an earlier provision sometimes can be useful aid in construing the earlier provision even though such amendment is not given retrospective effect.

I am of the view that only such persons who were the owners of the land on the first publication of the scheme under Section 36 of the Act alone could be termed as ''local displaced persons''. I am adding the words on the first publication of the scheme under Section 36 of the Act'' in Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules as it stood prior to its amendment, because any other interpretation would frustrate the very purpose. A landowner who on the first publication of the scheme under Section to 36 of the Act, having become aware of the fact that his land had become the subject matter of acquisition proceedings may by transferring the same 10 or 20 different persons claim from the Trust under Rule 6(1) of the Rules as many number of plots as the transferees, whereas according to Rule 6(2) no more than one plot would have been allotted, had the transfers not been made. I am also conscious of the fact that after the publication of the scheme under Section 36 of the Act transfers made thereafter are valid till the date of the delivery of possession. Transferring a land validly in favour of another is one thingand becoming a `local displaced person'' within the meaning of Rule 2 (b) of the 1951 Rules so as to claim entitlement to a plot under it scheme is altogether different. All persons who become owners of land after the first publication of the scheme are no doubt owners of land whose land would be acquired for the execution of the scheme and they would be entitled to compensation in terms of the provisions of the Act read with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 but such persons would not be entitled to the allotment of a plot under Rule 6(1) of the 1951 Rules. The 1951 Rules are giving a benefit to the landowners whose land is being acquired and this benefit is in addition to the compensation payable therefor. The original landowner who was the owner prior to the date of the publication of the scheme would alone be covered by the term ''local displaced person''. The use of the words "whose own property has been acquired" in Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules is significant and meaningful in this regard. If transferees subsequent to the first publication of the scheme are to be treated as owners of the land so as to entitle everyone of them to claim a plot, a situation can arise and invariablyit may arise that the number of claimants for the plots so swells up that the trust may not have even enough land to meet their claims. Again on the death of the original landowner, the land may be inherited by a number of persons. It will be all the heirs taken together who will represent the deceased landowner and they, would form a unit for the purposes of Rule 6(1) of the 1951 Rules and will be jointly entitled to the allotment of a plot. Similarly, when a number of persons succeed to the land of the deceased on the basis of a Will, all the legatees together would form a unit for the purposes of Rule 6(1) and would be jointly entitled to the'' allotment, of a plot. In all such cases, if the heirs or the legatees Are to be treated individual owners of their respective shares of land, then each heir and each legatee would be entitled to a plot separately but this could not be the intention of the Rules and rather it will be the negation thereof.

The amendment of the term ''local displaced person'' in September 1974 to mean a person who is owner of a property acquired by the Trust for the execution of a scheme and has been such owner for a continuous period of two years immediately before the first publication under Section 36 applies where schemes are published after 9.9.1974. This definition being prospective as it is, would govern only those schemes. In other words, the words "and has been such owner for a continuous period of two years immediately before the first publication of the scheme by the Trust under Section 36 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, would apply to schemes published after the amendment was brought about. I may clarify that by reason of the interpretation, I am placing on the Rules, any person who had come owner of any land by virtue of a transfer effected before the first publication of the scheme would be a `local displaced person'' within the meaning of Rule 2(b) of the 1951 Rules and the amendment brought about in September, 1974 would not apply to such a person or in other words, it is not necessary that such a transferee should have been owner for a continuous period of two years immediately before the first publication of the scheme.

The writ petitions, thus, stand disposed of and the Trust is directed to consider the applications of the petitioners for the allotment of land in the light of the observations made above and to allot plots to them if they are found entitled. There is no order as to costs.