Punjab Wakf Board vs Darb Singh (Deceased) Through his L.R.S.

S.D Bajaj, J.—Giving out 13 Kanals of suit land bearing Khewat No. 229, Khatauni No 296, Rectangle No. 45, Khasra No. 29, situate in village Sialba, Tehsil Kharar, District Rup Nagar, as ''Gair Mumkin Kabar'' dedicated as ''Kabirstan'' and vesting in itself as owner for management and administration of the Wakf land in terms of Section 5 of the Wakf Board Act, 1954, the Punjab Wakf Board filed against Durb Singh, Defendant a suit for recovery of its possession on the ground that Defendant-Respondent was a trespasser therein from 1947. The suit was dismissed by the learned trial Court of Sub Judge, 1st Class. Kharar, on 28th January, 1977. An appeal filed against the decision aforesaid was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge, Rup Nagar, on 19th December, 1977. Hence R. S. A. No 519 of 1978 was filed in this Court.

The only point urged irk this Court by Shri P. L. Sanghi, learned Counsel for the Plaintiff Appellant, is that the learned Additional District Judge, Ropar, wrongly threw out the first appeal filed before him as incompetent because the Punjab Wakf Board had through a notification No. Genl dated 27th March, 1968, duly authorised its Secretary to file appeals For facility of reference, the relevant notification is reproduced hereinafter:

The 27th March, 1968

No Genl-In exercise of the powers conferred u/s 22 of the Wakf Act, 1954 the Punjab Wakf Board, Ambala,-vide its resolution No. 30, dated 27th March, 1968, delegates its powers to the Chairman and the Secretary as under:

To authorise the Chairman and also the Secretary to file appeals, revisions, review petitions and execution on behalf of the Punjab Wakf Board in Civil, criminal and revenue courts and other offices in all cases which have already been instituted or may hereafter be instituted by the Punjab Wakf Board through the Chairman or the secretary or the property officers or the field inspectors or the survey inspectors and the legal inspectors and also to engage counsels for the said purpose. Similarly the Chairman and also the Secretary are authorised to defend all the suits, appeals, revisions, executions review petitions or any other application which have already been instituted against the Board or may hereafter be instituted against the Board or may hereafter be instisuted against the Board and to engage counsels for the purpose.

In all those cases in which appeals, revisions, executions, review petitions or any other applications have been instituted by the Punjab Wakf Board the action taken by the Chairman or the Secretary are confirmed and approved.

Similarly the action which has already been taken by the Chairman or the Secretary to defend those cases in which appeals, revisions, executions, review petitions or any other applications have been instituted against the Punjab Wakf Board is confirmed and approved

The Chairman and the Secretary will be individually compentent to exercise the above said powers on behalf of the Board.

Note.-One copy of the resolution ousted on Notice Board.

MOHD. MOHIBULLA, Secretary, Punjab Wakf Board, Ambala Cantt

It would appear that the restitution aforesaid only authorised the Secretary as also the Chairman of the Board to file appeals; which power obviously included engaging a lawyer, signing the vakalatnama in his favour, purchasing of court fee and judicial papers, having the appeal drafted and typed thereon, signing the grounds of appeal and other papers and doing every other act deemed necessary for filing the appeal. The conferring of this authority cannot dispense with the need for a separate resolution of taking decision to file the appeal It was, therefore, necessary for the Wakf Board to pass a separate resolution of its decision to file an appeal before the learned District Judge against the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge, First Class, Kharar, dated 28th January, 1977. The learned Counsel for the Appellant conceded at the bar that no such resolution was ever passed by the Wakf Board. The appeal filed by the Secretary of the Wakf Board in the absence of such resolution was obviously filed without being permitted by the Board to do so The learned Court of first appeal thus rightly held in para 8 of its assailed judgment, dated 19th December, 1977, that a resolution was necessary to be passed by the Wakf Board taking a decision to file the appeal before it and the same having not been done, the appeal was incompetent. The finding recorded by the Court of the first appeal in this regard is thus affirmed.

There is obviously no merit in the R. S. A. and the same is, therefore, dismissed. In the peculiar circumstances of the case, the parties, are, however, left to bear their own costs in the RSA.