- (1.) The point of law that arises in this appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent and in Civil Writ 2607 of 1969 (Hardit Singh etc. v. Financial Commissioner etc.) is the same and these two cases will be disposed of by this order. The facts in the Letters Patent appeal may briefly be stated as follows :- Devi Dayal and kirpa Ram were two brothers. Kirpa Ram died in Pakistan before the partition. Devi Dayal along with his wife and a son, Bansari Lal, who is appellant before us migrated to India. He put in a claim with regard to the land, which was in his name as well as that in the name of his brother, Kirpa Ram, for the obvious reason that he was the heir of Kirpa Ram. On the basis of the claim, he was given allotment of 16 standard acres 1-3/41 units each regarding the land which was in his name and in the name of Kirpa Ram. This allotment was made on the u sual terms under Notification No. 4892/S dated 8th July, 1949, at page 193 of the Land Resettlement Manual by Tarlok Singh. The nature of the rights of an allottee under such allotment came under consideration by the Supreme Court in Amar Singh and others v. Custodian Evacuee Property, Punjab and another, 1957 AIR(SC) 599This matter was discussed at pages 607 to 610 in paragraphs 18 to 22. In a nutshell, it was held that the proprietary rights in the land still vested in the evacuees, who had left the property and the Custodian managed the property on behalf of the evacuees. The rights given to the allottees were more than that of a mere licensee, but such rights could not be termed as "property of any type". Later evacuee property was acquired by the President under the Displaced Persons (Compensation & Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, and under that Act the proprietary rights were granted to the allottees. If an allottee was found to be entitled to the entire area, which was originally allotted to him, proprietary rights were granted in respect of the entire area. If however it was found that the allottee was not entitled to the whole area for one reason or the other, but to a smaller area, then proprietary rights were granted only in respect of such smaller area. Now Devi Dayal died on 15th January, 1953, before such proprietary rights could be granted to him and this was also before the enforcement of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, which came into force on 15th April, 1953. After the demise of Devi Dayal, half of the land allotted to him was mutated in favour of his son Bansari Lal and the other half to his mother Mst. Jawali. Later, however, Mst. Jawali made a gift of her share to Bansari Lal in the month of January, 1958. Proprietary rights were granted on 24th June, 1958, to Bansrari Lal in the entire area which was 33 standard acres and some units. The question arose as to what is the permissible area of Bansari Lal, within the meaning of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. This, in turn depended on the question whether he could be treated as a displaced person and, if so, whether it could be treated that he was allotted more than 30 standard acres but less than 50 standard acres. If both these conditions were satisfied, then the entire area of 33 standard acres odd units would be treated as his permissible area. Failing that, only 30 standard acres or if converted into ordinary acres not more than 60 ordinary acres would be treated as his permissible area; The question, whether a person in the position of Bansari Lal would be treated as 'displaced person' was the subject-matter of the Full Bench decision in Munshi Ram v. The Financial Commissioner etc.,1967 PunLR 913, and it was held that only the original person, who had migrated from Pakistan, could be treated as a 'displaced person' and not his heirs after the death of such a landowner, after he had migrated to India on a date after 1st March, 1947. Under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 'displaced person' has the same meaning as given in the East Punjab Displaced Persons (Land Resettlement) Act, 1949 . The definition given is as under in the Act of 49 : " 'displaced person' means a landholder in the territories now comprised in the province of West Punjab....... and who has since the 1st day of March, 1947, abandoned or been made to abandon his land in the said territories on account of civil disturbances, or the fear of such disturbances, or the partition of the country". The view of the Full Bench in Munshi Ram's case was that only the persons who had originally migrated to India after 1st March, 1947, can be said to have abandoned the land in the territories now comprised in West Pakistan.
(2.) The learned counsel vehemently urged that the person, who can be said to have been given the allotment of land within the meaning of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, is the person who is given the proprietary rights. It is not necessary to go into this question, because Bansari Lal does not Fall within the definition of 'displaced person'. Even if the allotment has been made in his favour, that would not help him. So far as the question of his being considered 'displaced person' is concerned, the argument of the learned counsel was that after the demise of Devi Dayal, it could be said that Bansari Lal abandoned that property finally when he accepted the proprietary rights in the land on 24th June, 1958. Prior to that, till the Central Government had acquired the rights of the evacuees in India, he was still the owner of the property left in Pakistan and at any time he could have gone back if the circumstances were such that he could manage his land there. He urged that even after 1947, for some time, the two dominions permitted the transfer of properties by the evacuees on both sides and there had been a number of exchanges of immovable property, by those who had migrated to India of their property left in Pakistan with the property in India belonging to the evacuees who had left for Pakistan. This may be so. But in this case, by accepting the allotment under the notification, referred to above, Devi Dayal indicated that he had abandoned the land in Pakistan because of the disturbances and at no stage he indicated that he wanted to go back. Nor did Bansari Lal indicate that he wanted to go back. So the abandonment could be done only once and not several times. The decision of the Full Bench, therefore, prima facie, which is binding on us, appears to be correct, that only the persons who had originally migrated from Pakistan and had been allotted land would be treated as displaced persons.
(3.) The case in Munshi Ram v. The Financial Commissioner etc. was even stronger than the case before us, because there the original man, who migrated, died before any allotment could be made. The Department technically made the allotment in his favour as if the allotment was made immediately after partition and then mutated the property in the names of the heir.;