Sukhbir Singh and Others vs Financial Commissioner, Development, Punjab and Others

D.K. Mahajan, J.—This petition under Articles 226 and 247 of the Constitution is directed against the order of the Financial Commissioner, dated 12th September, 1963, refusing the prayer of the transferees from a big landowner that the land sold to them be allocated to his reserved area.

The facts of the case are as follows: Ajmer Singh respondent No. 4 owned land measuring 142 acres 133/4 units. On 28th November, 1955, he gifted some area out of this land to his wife, mother and son with the result that he was left with 30 standard acres of land which he reserved under the Act for personal cultivation. The gifts were ignored and the areas which had been transferred by mm to his wife, mother and son were declared surplus on 15th May, 1959. On 7th October, 1959, his wife sold out of the land gifted to her, 34 Kanals and 4 Marias to petitioners Nos. 1 and 2 for Rs. 6400/-. On 25th January, 1951, she again sold 8 Kanals of land to petitioner No 2 for Rs. 1500/-. On the same day, his mother sold 6 Kanals of land to petitioner No. 3 for Rs. 1200/-. None of the transferors disclosed that sales was out of the surplus area. In the sale deeds it is mentioned that the land was free from any encumbrance. The present petition was instituted when the State wanted to settle tenants on the surplus land, which in the meantime had been sold and was in possession of the transferees The petitioners, that is the transferees, contention was that the sales in their favour should be treated as sales out of the reserved area. This contention was negatived by the Commissioner and in revision by the Financial Commissioner also. Before the Financial Commissioner, an additional ground was sought to be urged, namely, that the transfers to the petitioners were vitiated by fraud because the petitioners had not been informed that the sales were out of the surplus area. The Financial Commissioner while rejecting the petition observed as follows-

I do not believe on considering the evidence that there is enough material to come to the decision that the petitioners were deliberately misled in an attempt to defraud them in the purchase of the area from the respondents, which was part of the surplus area. A relevant factor in this case also appears to be that the surplus area was not demarcated by act of choice of an executive or revenue authority of Government but as a result of the respondent earmarking his permissible area himself. Even if, therefore, a case of cheating of or some manner of defrauding as between the vendor and vendee, has taken place, I do not see how the remedy lies before me.

It is against this order of the Financial Commissioner that the present petition has been filed.

The learned counsel for the petitioners contends that the Financial Commissioner should have decided the question of fraud. I am, however, unable to agree with this contention. Even if it is assumed that the transfers were effected to the petitioners fraudulently, that is, by suppression of the fact that the transfers were from out of the surplus area, there is no provision in the Act authorising the authorities to allocate to the transferees (vendees) land out of the reserved area of the landlord in lieu of the land sold out of the surplus area. The landlord does not cease to be the owner of the land which is declared surplus area. All that happens is that the surplus land is utilised by the Government to settle tenants. Those tenants when settled on the land become by operation of law the tenants of the landowner. They have to attorn to him and pay rent to him. The tenants are, given certain other rights, by the Act such as right to purchase their holdings or to pre-empt the sale of their holding. But it is significant that the landowners rights of ownership are in no way taken away. The only right of the landowner that it affected is his right to settle tenants on the land or to till the land himself. The landowner has even the right to evict the tenants in certain contingencies specified in the Act. In this situation, I do not see how any fault can be found with the order of the Financial Commissioner. Moreover the plea of fraud was not raised either before the Collector or before the Commissioner. For the first time it was raised before the Financial Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner was right in observing that there was no material before him on the basis of which the plea of fraud could be determined in revision. Mr. Wasu, however, relied on Bhagat Gobind Singh v. State (1963) 65 P.L.R. 105 and Mota Singh v. Financial Commissioner, Punjab 1964 L.L.T. 9, for the contention that the Financial Commissioner should have determined the question of fraud. In my view, none of these decisions have any application to the facts of the present case. That being so there is no force in this petition. The same fails and is dismsssed but there will be no order as to costs.