DES RAM Vs. CHANDER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is directed against the decision of the Senior Subordinate Judge, reversing, on appeal, the decision of the trial Court decreeing the plaintiffs' suit.

(2.) Des Ram and others, plaintiffs, sued for a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from taking possession of the suit property, which is a vacant piece of land, as understood in common parlance. During the consolidation proceedings, this piece of land was allotted to the defendants. The plaintiffs' case is that it could not be allotted because the consolidation authorities had no jurisdiction to deal with it, as it was not land within the meaning of section 2(d) of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). It was further pleaded that the land was part of the village Abadi and, therefore, also could not be taken into consideration in the consolidation proceedings. The defendants contested the suit and pleaded that the land was 'land' within the meaning of section 2(d) of the Act and that it had been rightly allotted to the defendants. The trial Court came to the conclusion that the land was not 'land' as defined in section 2(d) of the Act inasmuch as it was Banjar Qadim land. The lower appellate Court, on the other hand, took a contrary view because it came to the conclusion that the land was being used for common purposes and it was not shown that it was occupied for the site of any building or any other construction. It was also found that the land was being used for agricultural purposes. Those agricultural purposes were enumerated as grazing cattle, drinking of the water by village cattle and for holding of threshing floors. Against this decision, the present second appeal has been preferred.

(3.) In the revenue records, the land is recorded as 'Banjar Qadim'. If the land was reserved for a pasture, the entry would have been 'Charand' and not 'Banjar Qadim'. If it was being used for other common purposes of the village, there would have been a corresponding entry to that effect. It was not the defendants' case that the revenue entries were wrong nor any evidence was led to prove that they were, in fact, wrong. In this view of the matter, it appears to me that the lower appellate Court has gone wrong in overlooking the revenue entry, wherein the land has been recorded as 'Banjar Qadim' and ignoring it on wholly irrelevant considerations. It has been held in this Court in Shri Nemi Chand Jain v. The Financial Commissioner, Punjab and another, 1964 66 PunLR 278 that 'Banjar Qadim' land is not land within the meaning of section 2(8) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. The definition of that Act is identical with the definition of land in section 2(d) of the Act. Therefore, 'Banjar Qadim' land will not be land for purposes of consolidation of holdings and the consolidation authorities had no jurisdiction to take it into account in consolidation proceedings. In this view of the matter, the decision of the lower appellate Court cannot be supported.