- (1.) The surplus area case of Naranjan Singh, petitioner, was decided by the Collector, Ferozepur, in 1962. His appeal against this order partly succeeded and the case was remanded by the Commissioner to the Special Collector, who again declared certain areas as surplus. This petitioner filed an appeal against this order to the Commissioner. This appeal was allowed in 1967 and the case was once again remanded to be decided afresh. The Special Collector vide his order dated 25th June, 1969, decided the case ex parte against the petitioner and declared certain lands as surplus. The Collector had held in paragraph 4 of the judgment that several summons had been issued to the landowner and other interested persons, but they were evading service. At last, summons were posted at the house of the landowner for his appearance on 13th March, 1969 but the landowner did not appear before him and ex parte proceedings were taken against him. The appeal filed against this order was dismissed by the Commissioner on 9th December, 1969. The petitioner filed a revision petition against this order and the same was dismissed by the Financial Commissioner on 13th October, 1970. It is against these orders the petitioner has filed the writ petition in this Court.
(2.) In the present case, the petitioner had not been personally served. Nobody has stated that any effort was made to serve the summons on an authorised agent of the petitioner or any male member of the family residing with him. The procedure for service of summons in the proceedings under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act is to be that, which has been prescribed for the Revenue Officers under Section 90 of the Punjab Tenant Act, which is in the following terms :- [Section 90 not printed - Ed.] It is clear from the language employed in sub-section (1) above that the process-server has to make diligent efforts to serve the summons personally on the person to whom it is addressed. If he fails in that, then on his recognized agent and in the absence of that on an adult male member of his family who is residing with such person. It is only when service is not possible in the above-mentioned manner that recourse can be taken to the substituted service under sub-section (2). Even in that case, the substituted service by posting the copy of the summons on the dwelling house can be ordered by the Revenue Officer issuing summons. The process server has no authority to take recourse to the manner of service by affixation. Shri C.D. Kapur, Financial Commissioner, Punjab in Gulzara Singh v. Sakta Singh,1971 PunLJ 533, has held :- "If the petitioner had at all refused to accept service of the summons, then the appropriate course which the Process Server should have followed was that he should have submitted his report to the learned Collector and he should have then decided as to what sort of substituted service be adopted to secure presence of the petitioner before him, keeping in view the provisions of sub-section (2) and (4) of Section 90 of the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 . The Process Server could not on his own authority, post a copy of the summons on the residential house of the petitioner even though it may be assumed to be correct that the petitioner had refused to accept service of the summons. ... ... ...". This is the correct interpretation of Section 90 of the Punjab Tenancy. So, in the present case, the order passed by the Collector ordering ex parte proceedings on the basis of the report of the process server is clearly illegal and without jurisdiction.
(3.) An effort was made to say that the petition had appeared before the Collector himself on 17th April, 1969. A reference has been made to an interim order of that date. However, the petitioner has vehemently denied this. He has stated that he did not appear before the Collector in these proceedings. In the impugned order, the Collector has not mentioned anywhere that the petitioner ever appeared before him. He has rather stated that the landowner did not appear before him and ex parte proceedings were taken against him. It seems that the interm orders did not get the requisite care which should be bestowed on them by the senior Officers like a Collector.;