K.KANNAN,J. - (1.) THE petitioner challenges the order passed by the Collector and the Financial Commissioner being the authorities under the Punjab Utilization of Surplus Area Scheme of 1973 cancelling the allotment made in his favour and allowing for claims of Chanan Singh and Harbans Singh to prevail. The allotment had been made in favour of the petitioner from out of the surplus pool realized from the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act of 1953.
(2.) ORIGINALLY allotment had been made in favour of Dasondha Singh, but it had been cancelled subsequently on 26.10.1971 when Dasondha Singh was shown to have never taken possession of the property. The fresh allotment made in favour of Sucha Singh on 19.05.1975 was itself not subject of challenge, but after the said allotment, Chanan Singh, who was the father of Dasondha Singh, and Harbans Singh son of Kishan Singh sought for allotment in their respective favour in respect of the same property. The Collector held that Chanan Singh was not inhabitant of the same village where the property was situate and he had not applied in Form-I under the Punjab Utilization of Surplus Area Scheme of 1973. Likewise Harbans Singh was a resident of Village Bhaini Mattwan and having not applied in Form-I prescribed under the Scheme, he was held not entitled to any allotment. This order of the Collector was subsequently set aside and still later confirmed by the Financial Commissioner on the ground that Dasondha Singh's allotment could not have been cancelled without notice and consequently, the allotment could be made in favour of his wife. It must be noticed that when the first order was made by the Collector on 16.04.1976, the dispute was only between the petitioner on the one hand, who had secured an allotment and Chanan Singh and Harbans Singh, on the other. It transpires that when Chanan Singh had preferred an appeal to the Commissioner, Jalandhar, against the first order of the Collector, who remitted the matter for fresh consideration before the Collector, Land Reforms, Tarn Taran. The Collector set aside the allotment in favour of the petitioner and made an allotment in favour of Dasondha Singh's wife, although she had herself not filed any petition for allotment. The Collector has observed, however, that the allotment in favour of Dasondha Singh could not have been cancelled without notice to him or his legal heirs and made a fresh allotment in favour of Dasondha Singh's widow. This order was set aside by the Additional Commissioner when he observed that Dasondha Singh was a tenant under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act and he had been ejected from the land. I would find that this observation of the Additional Commissioner was surely not factually correct because the petition for eviction had been filed against the father of Dasondha Singh, who was Chanan Singh, on an averment that Dasondha Singh had not been in possession of the property at all but it was only Chanan Singh, who was in occupation of the land thereof and he had also not paid rent. He found that when the State had claimed the property back, he was making an allotment to do so as per the rules and made an allotment to the petitioner, who was a resident of the same village where the property was situate. It was not as if, the widow of Dasondha Singh was making a claim to the property as a legal heir of the allottee. A fresh allotment, if it was to have been made, the rules set out a certain manner of priorities and the resident of the same village was entitled to a preference. Admittedly, the widow Daljit Kaur was a resident of Bhaini Mattwan whereas the petitioner was a resident of the Village Jeobala, Tehsil Tarn Taran.
(3.) THE issue is not whether the allotment of Dasondha Singh could have been cancelled or not. The observation of the Collector and still later of the Financial Commissioner that the cancellation of allotment of Dasondha Singh could not have been made without notice is neither here nor there. The challenge to cancellation itself was not brought through any petition at the instance of Dasondha Singh's widow. If the subsequent allotment made in favour of Sucha Singh on 19.05.1975 were to be cancelled, it could not have been done without an application for quashing the cancellation of allotment made in favour of Dasondha Singh. When Dasondha Singh himself was not proved to have been in actual possession, especially when the original owner Saudagar Singh had filed a petition against Chanan Singh (the father of Dasondha Singh) for eviction claiming that he was in possession, the widow could not have made a claim to the property for a fresh allotment. It should be observed that the widow of Dasondha Singh was not claiming as heir to her husband under a previous allotment, but she was securing a fresh allotment by the fact that originally an allotment had been made in favour of Dasondha Singh. If that allotment itself had been cancelled subsequently in the year 1971, the allotment in favour of Sucha Singh could not have been interfered with.;