Raghbir Singh and Others vs Financial Commissioner Revenue and Others

Prem Chand Pandit, J.—This is a writ petition filed by Raghbir Singh and his two sons challenging the validity of the order dated 29th December, 1962, passed by the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Punjab, Respondent No. 1.

According to the allegations of the Petitioners, on 12th October, 1953 Raghbir Singh, Petitioner No. 1, who is a landowner duly reserved permissible area of land under the provisions of the Punjab Security of Land Tanures Act. 1953 ("hereinafter referred to as the Act) in village Alamshah, district Ferozepore. On 8th June, 1961 Mahla Ram and others, tenants, Respondents 2 to 4, filed an application u/s 18 of the Act for the purchase of the land measuring 12 Acres and 7 Marlas out of the said reserved area. After contest, the Assistant Collector First Grade, Ferozepore; by his order dated 27th October, 1961 allowed the said application on payment of Rs. 7,505.37 nP. in ten equal six-monthly instalments. Against this order, the Petitioners filed an appeal before the Collector, Ferozepore, who by his order dated 31st January, 1962 dismissed the same. Thereafter, the Petitioners filed a revision petition before the Additional Commissioner, Jullundur Division; and the same was also dismissed by him on 18th October. 1962. This order was further confirmed in revision by the Financial Commissioner,--vide the impunged order dated 29th December, 1962 mentioned above. He held that since two khasra Nos. 594 and 595, which were under the self-cultivation of the Petitioners, had not been included in the reserved area, the reservation made was invalid. This led to the filing of the present writ petition on 28th January, 1963.

Learned Counsel for the Petitioners contended that even if the Petitioner had erroneously not included khasra Nos. 594 and 595 in his reserved area, the entire reservation, made by him could not be held to be bad because this action of the learned Financial Commissioner was not warranted by law and the Petitioners could not be deprived of the area, which could be reserved under the Act.

Section 5 of the Act deals with the reservation of land. According to this section, a landowner, who owns land in excess of the permissible area, k entitled to reserve out of the entire land held by him any land not exceeding the permissible area and for this purpose he has to supply this information in the prescribed form. This section further lays down that while making this reservation, he has to include the area under his self-cultivation at the commencement of this Act. Now the question arises that if a landowner purposely or by mistake omits to include certain khasra numbers which were under his self-cultivation at the time of the commencement of the Act in his reserved area, then will the entire reservation become in valid and be completely ignored so that the tenants could purchase even this land under the provisions Fir of Section 18 of the Act? It may be mentioned that Section 18 of the Act authorises certain tenants to purchase those lands only, which are not included in the reserved area of the landowners. There is no provision in the Act which enables the Authorities to hold such a reservation as invalid, in case it is later on discovered by them that there were certain defects or irregularities in the reservation made by a landowner. It is, however, clearly laid down in the Act that a landowner is entitled to keep the permissible area with him and the remaining land can be purchased by the tenants under the provisions of Section 18 of the Act. In my view, an irregularity of defect in making this reservation cannot result in depriving a landowner of the permissible area, which the Act authorises him to keep. It was not the intention of this enactment that in such a contingency a landowner should lose even his permissible area. The correct procedure, in such a case, is that the land, which he had to include in his reserved area and which he had failed to do should be so included and an equivalent area should be excluded out of the one which had already been reserved by him. The entire reservation cannot, however, be declared to be illegal. In the present case, it has been found by the Revenue Authorities that certain khasra numbers, which were under the self-cultivation of the Petitioner, had not been included by him in his reserved area. That being so, those khasra numbers should be included in the reserved area and an equivalent area should be taken out of the reservation already made by the Petitioner. It may be mentioned that the Learned Financial Commissioner has held that there were only, two khasra numbers, which were under the self-cultivation of the Petitioner and which he had failed to include in his reserved area, while the Additional Commissioner, the Collector and the Assistant Collector, First Grade, have on the other hand, stated that there were other Khasra numbers as well, which were under the self-cultivation of the Petitioner at the commencement of the Act and he had omitted to include them in his reserved area. This matter, therefore, requires fresh determination by the Revenue Authorities and once a definite finding is given by them in this respect, then that area should be included in the reserved area and an equivalent area should be excluded from the reservation made by the Petitioner.

It may be noted that the learned Counsel for the Petitioners also challenged the vires of Section 19-E of the Act, but this contention was repelled by a Bench decision of this Court in Bhagat Gobind Singh v. Punjab State and Ors. ILR 1963 (1) P&H : 1963 P.L.R. 105; wherein this provision of law was held to be constitutional and valid.

In the light of the observations made above, this petition succeeds and the impugned order of the learned Financial Commissioner declaring the entire reservation of the Petitioner as invalid is set aside. In the circumstances of this case, however, I will leave the parties to bear their own costs in these proceedings.