KARAM SINGH Vs. HARTEJ BAHADUR SINGH AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent against the judgment, dated the 26th of August, 1966, of Narula, J., the sole question arising for decision is as to whether a tenant, who has been forcibly dispossessed by his landlord sometime prior to the commencement of the consolidation proceedings in the village where the land covered by the tenancy is situate, is entitled to regain the possession of that land by recourse to Section 43 of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) in spite of the fact that the said proceedings have been carried out and finalised.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to the appeal may be briefly stated. The disputed land is situated in village Khangarh, District Sangrur, and belongs to Hartej Bahadur Singh Respondent No. 1, under whom the Appellant was holding it as a tenant. Before the commencement of the consolidation proceedings in the village, Respondent No. 1 obtained possession of the land which was done, according to him, by a compromise between himself and the Appellant and, according to the latter, illegally and forcibly. In 1957 -58 the consolidation authorities, acting under Section 23 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Consolidation Act), handed over possession of the land comprised in the tenancy of the Appellant to Respondent No. 1.

(3.) IT was then that Respondent No. 1 came to this Court on the writ side with a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India praying that the order of the Financial Commissioner be quashed. Relying upon Hartej Bahadur Singh v. The State of Punjab and Ors., 1964 P.L.R. 751 the learned Single Judge held in the impugned order that the Appellant could not avail of the remedy under Section 43 of the Act but was bound to knock at the door of the consolidation authorities who could give him the necessary relief in accordance with the provisions of the Consolidation Act. It was urged before him that Hartej Bahadur Singh's case (1), (supra) was distinguishable inasmuch as the finding therein was that the consolidation authorities had failed to deliver possession of an erstwhile tenant (that is, a person, who had continued to retain the status of a tenant in possession right up to the time when consolidation work was started in the village in which the land in dispute was situate) while in the present case, according to the averments made by both parties, the Appellant had been deprived of the land in dispute before the consolidation proceedings were commenced. The learned Single Judge, however, was of the opinion that there was no distinction between the two cases, both of which were governed according to him, by the ratio in Hartej Bahadur Singh's case (1), which he laid down as follows: