- (1.) BY this judgment I shall dispose of eight petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India in which the questions requiring determination are identical. They are Civil Writs Nos. 2042, 2516, 2522 to 2526 and 2577 of 1967 and have arisen thus. The Gram Panchayat of Village Siwa situated in Tehsil Panipat, District Karnal, made applications against the petitioners under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation)Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to the Assistant Collector, 1st Grade, Panipat, claiming to be put into possession of land held by the petitioners on the ground that it was Shamilat deh which vested in the Panchayat under the Act and whereof the petitioners were in wrongful possession. The applications were accepted by the Assistant Collector against whose order the petitioners went up in appeal to the Collector but remained unsuccessful. They knocked the door of the Commissioner in second appeal but again without success. It was then that they filed the eight petitions under consideration challenging the orders of the Commissioner and his subordinates on various grounds, one of which was that Section 7 of the Act was ultra vires of the Constitution of India. That ground is not pressed before me in view of the dictum of a Division Bench of this Court in Jaimal v. Commr. , Ambala Division, 1969 PLJ 378, rejecting it as untenable.
(2.) THE only ground which Mr. Surinder Sarup, learned counsel for the petitioners, has urged before me is that the impugned orders were passed without jurisdiction and were, therefore, mere nullities in view of he fact that they resulted from proceedings initiated by an institution, namely, the Gram Panchayat of village Siwa, which was neither a natural nor a juristic person. Support for this ground is sought from State of Punjab (now Haryana State) v. Gram Panchayat, Rajipura, 1970 PLJ 752, in which D. K. Mahajan, J. , quoted with approval the following observations made in G. I. P. Rly. Senior Institute v. Mohit Kumar, AIR 1954 Nag 29 : "an unregistered and non-proprietary club is not a juridical person and as such cannot sue or be sued. Where it has to be made liable, the proper course is to sue individually the members thereof or to sue only those persons who have rendered themselves personally liable in respect of a contract or tort as the case may be. " And held that o suit by a Gram Panchayat, which is not a body corporate, is permissible. With very great respect I would say that no fault can be found with the dictum of Mahajan, J. , or with the observations on which it is based but I do not see that it lends any assistance to the case of the petitioners. The relevant portion of Section 7 of the Act may be quoted with advantage: "7. (1) An Assistant Collector of the first grade, having jurisdiction in the village shall, on an application made by a Panchayat, after making such summary enquiry as he may think fit and in accordance with such procedure as may be prescribed, but the Panchayat in possession of the land or other immovable property in the shamilat deh of that village which vests or is deemed to have been vested in it under this Act and for so doing the Assistant Collector may exercise the powers of a Revenue Court in relation to the execution of a decree for possession of the land under the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887. (2) An Assistant Collector of the first grade jurisdiction in the village may, either suo motu or on an application made to him by a Panchayat or an inhabitant of the village eject, in the manner and in accordance with the procedure referred to in sub-rule (1), any person who is in wrongful or unauthorised possession of any land or other immovable property in shamilat deh of that illegal which vests or is deemed to have been vested in the Panchayat under this Act. (3) An appeal against the order of the Assistant Collector shall lie to the Collector. (4) An appal against the appellate order of the Collector shall lie to the Commissioner. x x x x x x
(3.) IT goes without saying that an application of type envisaged in this section is certainly not a suit as contemplated in the two cases cited above in which the litigation in question consisted of regular suits triable by the Civil Courts and governed by the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure which has no application to disputes of the kind covered by Section 7 of he Act which itself states in unmistakable terms that the Assistant Collector may be moved on an application made by a Panchayat. Clause (e) of Section 2 of the Act defines "panchayat" as meaning a Panchayat constituted or continued under the Punjab Gram Panchayat Act. 1952 etc. it is not denied that the Gram Panchayat of village Siwa in such a Panchayat. And if that be so, no exception can at all be taken to the competence of the Panchayat to make applications under Section 7 of the Act and to be a party to th proceedings culminating in the impugned orders. The mere fact that the Panchayat is neither a natural nor a juristic person, does not affect the impugned orders, when the Act clothes it with the necessary authority.;