- (1.) A Writ Petition No. 2710 of 1985 instituted by the appellants in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, which not only should have been admitted but should have been allowed for the mere asking of it, having been dismissed, the original Writ Petitioners have approached this Court by way of the present appeal by special leave.
(2.) The appellants were allotted different parcels of land between 1967 and 1973 from out of the surplus area declared from the holding of one Abdul Latif Khan under the relevant provisions of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act (Act). The appellants, allottees of the abovesaid parcels of land, deposited the appropriate instalments of purchase price and secured actual possession of these parcels of land and had been in possession thereof ever since. The allotment was made in their favour in order to resettle them on the lands which were declared surplus. An order was passed by the Commissioner of Patiala Division on January 14, 1981 in the wake of the death of the original land-holder Abdul Latif Khan, who died on January 9, 1978. The Commissioner by his aforesaid order directed that the appellants were liable to be dispossessed by reason of the fact that in view of the death of the original land-holder the permissible area which could be retained by the land-holder and the surplus area under the relevant provisions of law was required to be redetermined. He then recorded the finding that there was no surplus and directed the dispossession of the appellants. The appellants challenged the order passed by the Commissioner, before the Financial Commissioner by way of revision. The Financial Commissioner upheld the contention of the appellants in an extremely well-considered order and set aside the order of the Commissioner. Thereupon, the heirs of the deceased land-holder applied for review of the order passed by the Financial Commissioner on the ground that no such review was competent. The Financial Commissioner upheld this plea and set aside his previous order. Thereupon the appellants approached the High Court by way of the Writ Petition giving rise to the present appeal. The High Court, by a non-speaking order, dismissed the Writ Petition in limine. Hence the present appeal. The following facts emerge from the record :- That in respect of the holding of the original holder Abdul Latif Khan, taking into account the land, the permissible area is the surplus area available for resettlement of the ejected tenants, was determined on January 16, 1963. As per the determination the surplus area available for utilisation for resettlement was computed at 52-8 acres 101/2 units. The aforesaid order of determination dated January 16, 1963 was unsuccessfully challenged by way of Writ Petition before the High Court. The order dated December 17, 1970 dismissing the Writ Petition was confirmed by a Division Bench in a Letters Patent Appeal filed by the original holder. Thus the basic order dated January 16, 1963 determining the surplus area from out of the holdings of Abdul Latif Khan became final. There is no provision for reopening of such an order which has become final. The land-holder Abdul Latif Khan died 15 years after the determination of the surplus area, on January 9, 1978. The death of the original land-holder would have no impact on the determination made in 1963 of surplus from out of the original holding which had become final in 1970. Even so the Commissioner came to the conclusion that the surplus area of the holding of the original holder required to be re-determined and passed the impugned order which was initially set aside by the Financial Commissioner, but was restored upon realising that he had no powers of the review.
(3.) The Commissioner appears to have passed this order in the course of proceedings initiated by one Gulab Singh and Piyara Singh and some others on the promise that they were bona fide transferees to whom Abdul Latif Khan had transferred the lands on which the appellants had been settled before July 30, 1958 and that they should be accepted as transferees under S. 31 of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act. They prayed that the lands transferred to them should be excluded from the surplus area declared from out of the estate of the original land-holder, Abdul Latif Khan. These applications were rejected by the Commissioner after affording them an opportunity of hearing. The aforesaid order passed by the Commissioner has become final. Now, at no stage was there an occasion for the heirs of deceased land-holder Abdul Latif Khan to apply for reopening of the surplus order declared from the estate of the deceased land-holder which was inherited by them. Even so, the Commissioner thought that in view of the death of the original land- holder and in view of the fact that some of the persons claiming to be transferee had made an application for excluding their land from the surplus order, the determination made in 1963 which had become final by virtue of the dismissal in 1970 of the Writ Petition challenging the determination, could be reopened in. the context of S. 32-FF. This contention was altogether devoid of substance and was based on thorough misunderstanding. The Financial Commissioner had in the order which he was subsequently obliged to revoke on the ground of lack of jurisdiction had dealt with the merits in a lucid manner in the following passage :- "As is seen from the narration of the facts and their analysis made before, it is factually incorrect that the surplus area had not been declared finally during the lifetime of Abdul Latif Khan deceased or that it had not been utilised before his death. The surplus area had initially been declared on 16-1-63 but after making a modification therein in compliance of the remand orders of the Commissioner it was finally determined on 28-8-1975 when an area of 42.02 Acres was declared surplus area. The landlord Abdul Latif Khan was alive then. Also, the said surplus area had been finally allotted to and taken possession of by the allottees on various dates starting from 1967 to 1973 and even then Abdul Latif Khan landlord was alive. He had died on 9-1-1978 by which date the matter regarding the declaration as well as utilisation of surplus area, as far as Abdul Latif Khan was concerned had already been finalised. In this situation, the question of re-assessing surplus area in the hands of the heirs of the said Abdul Latif Khan under the provisions of the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972 does not arise and the orders of the learned Commissioner dated 14-1-1981. to this effect are erroneous and unjustified. These orders are, therefore, set aside and the orders dated 15-1-1979, of the Collector Agrarian, Malerkotla along with his previous orders dated 28-8-1975 are upheld as final. This revision petition is, therefore, accepted accordingly." It is no doubt true that the Financial Commissioner had no powers of review vis-a-vis the order passed by the Commissioner. However, the view taken by him on merits was perfectly right. The High Court should have taken into consideration the reasoning reflected in the aforesaid passage for examining the validity, of the order passed by the Commissioner whereby the appellants were sought to be deprived of the lands allotted to them between 1967 and 1973 on the ground that the original land-holder had died in 1978 and the re-determination of the surplus was required to be made. In any case that was not done and that is why the matter is now before this Court.;