Smt. Bhuro and Others vs The Punjab State and Others

I.S. Tiwana, J.—In this Regular Second Appeal, the question that has been raised by the Plaintiff-Appellants who have been concurrently nonsuited by the two lower Courts in a suit for permanent injunction restraining Respondent Nos. 1 to 2 i.e. the State of Punjab and the Collector, Bhatinda, from interfering in their possession of the suit land relates to the jurisdiction of the civil Court. It arises on the following allegations made in the plaint.

The Plaintiffs who are respectively daughter-in-law and daughter of Pritam Singh Respondent-Defendant No. 3 are the transferees of the suit land from the latter through a Tamliq and are continuing to be in its possession as owners. According to the Appellants, the factum of this Tamliq is duly recorded in the Roznamcha of the Patwari as report No. 361 dated June 29, 1956. They further allege that Respondents Nos. 1 and 2 seek to dispossess them on the basis of an order passed by the latter on March 17, 1964 without notice to them declaring 26.64 standard acres of land including the suit land as surplus in the hands of Defendant No. 3, i.e. the transferor of the Plaintiffs. They maintain that this order qua them is null and void. As these allegations of the Appellants were controverted by Respondent Nos. 1 and 9 in their written statement it led to the framing of four issues for trial out of which No. 1 relates to the jurisdiction of the civil Court and is worded as follows:

Whether this Court has jurisdiction to try the suit.

As indicated earlier, both the lower Courts have held that in view of the provisions of Section 47 of The Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 (for short, the Act) under the provisions of which Pritam Singh Respondent has been found to be in possession of surplus area, the jurisdiction of the civil Court is barred to try the suit.

Mr. Ashok Bhan, learned Counsel for the Appellants vehemently urges that the lower Courts have gone entirely wrong in understanding and appreciating the implications of Section 47 of the Act. After hearing the learned Counsel for the parties at some length, I find that the submission of the learned Counsel is not devoid of merit.

It is beyond dispute that the question of jurisdiction of the civil Court to try a particular suit is to be determined on the basis of the allegations made in the plaint, i.e. without going into the veracity or the merits of the same. Even the pleas on merits raised in defence are not relevant for that consideration. It is equally well established that the exclusion of the jurisdiction of the civil Court in matters relating to the determination of the question of title or ownership is not to be readily inferred and the provisions of a statute barring the jurisdiction of the civil Court have to be strictly interpreted. Keeping these principles and the allegations made in the plaint to the effect that the Appellants are the owners of the suit land and had not been served with any notice of any sort by any of the authorities acting under the Act before declaring their area as surplus and thus the resultant order dated March 17, 196, was void qua them, it looks patent to me that the jurisdiction of the trial Court to try this suit was not barred by the provisions of Section 47 of the et, Though I need not go into the merits of the question as to whether the order dated March 17, 1964, is an order without jurisdiction as that would be a consideration on merits yet the learned Counsel for the Appellants has made a reference to two judgments of this Court wherein this aspect of the case has been considered. Judgment of the learned Single Judge in Mohan Lal v. Nahar Singh 1969 CLJ 766, on which reliance has been placed by both the lower Courts in dismissing the suit of the Plaintiffs was, reversed by Letters Patent Bench on appeal and this later judgment is reported as Nahar Singh v. Mohan Lal 1971 P.L.J. 328. It was held that Section 47 of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, does not bar the jurisdiction of the civil Court to try a suit based on allegations that the action of the authority was without jurisdiction. In Puran Singh v. The State of Punjab and Anr. 1975 P.L.J. 1, it has again been held by a Division Bench that it is always open to a party to plead and prove that the purported order of the Financial Commissioner, Commissioner or the Collector or the Prescribed Authority has not been made under or in pursuance of the Act and is therefore not immune to an attack in a Civil Court. For the assertion that the order dated March 17, 1964, is void being without notice to the Appellants, learned Counsel for the Appellants relies on a Full Bench judgment of five Judges of this Court in Harnak Singh and Anr. v. The State of Punjab and Anrs. 1971 P.L.J. 727, wherein it has been held that transfers of land effected by a landowner from out of his holding prior to August 21, 1956, have to be given full effect and no part of land so transferred is to be deemed to belong the land owner for the purposes of declaring his surplus area It has further been held that such transferee is entitled to a notice or a hearing before the area in his hand can be declared surplus. Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 seta that while determining the surplus area of a landowner, the area in the hands of another can be held to be surplus under the provisions of the Act and such an order is made sacrosanct by the provisions of Section 47 of the Act looks strange on the face of it. Learned Counsel for the Respondents could not refer to any judgment contrary to the ones relied upon b, the learned Counsel for the Appellants.

In the light of discussion above, this appeal succeeds and the judgments and decree under appeal are set aside but with no order as to costs. Since the lower Courts have not determined the rest of the issues on merit. I send the case back to the trial Court to proceed with the same in accordance with law. The parties through their counsel are directed to appear before the said Court on March 2, 1981. Any expression of opinion mad; in this judgment should not be taken as final on the merits of the issues other than the one reproduced above.