K.KANNAN,J. - (1.) THE petitioner was resident of village Dhanoor, District Ludhiana. He was sought to be ejected pursuant to the proceedings initiated under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961.
(2.) IT was contended that no notice had been issued to him and the order had been passed ex parte and he had known about the order only when the warrant of possession had been issued by DDPO. An appeal had been filed against warrant of possession urging contentions on merits that the property was not in unlawful occupation but it had been permitted to be occupied by them in the proceedings of the Deputy Commissioner, Ludhiana after due resolution of the Panchayat. The earlier authority did not examine the case on merits and summarily rejected it holding that since warrant of possession had been issued, the contention of the petitioner can not be entertained. It is the order of the Collector which was affirmed by the Director, Panchayats, Punjab which is under challenge before this Court. The contention of the petitioner is that the property had been allotted at the time when Village Dhanoor and Village Tanda Kalia were in single Panchayat and on the recommendation of the Deputy Commissioner, Ludhiana, the Panchayat had passed a resolution to allot the land to the petitioner for construction of the house. A resolution had been passed in the year 1973 and property was permitted to be occupied by the petitioner. He had constructed a house thereon and after the bifurcation of the Panchayat into two, for each of the two villages, the newly constituted Panchayat at Village Tanda Kalia had filed an application under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Land (Regulation) Act, 1961 for ejectment before Collector, Samrala. The Collector had dismissed the application vide his order dated 21.12.1992 (Annexure P-3) holding that the property had already been granted to the petitioner on a resolution of the Panchayat and possession was not shown to be in unauthorised occupation of the petitioner. This order became final but without in any way assailing the same, the Panchayat had filed a fresh petition before the Collector at Ludhiana and an ex parte order had been secured.
(3.) RULE 20 deals with putting the Panchayat into possession under Section 7 and Rule 21 sets out the matter of consideration in the matter of eviction.;