- (1.) All these writ petitions address the issues which are fully covered by earlier pronouncements of this Court. The facts would only therefore be required to be stated in brief for appropriate application of the law laid down already.
(2.) The rival contentions are between persons, who claimed as purchasers or legal representatives of the said purchasers from the original big landowner Madan Gopal on the one hand and the State and the allottees from the State are interested in disputing the petitioners' claim on the ground that the properties have been declared as surplus area under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act of 1953 Act (for short, '1953 Act') and dealt with by virtue ofCivil Writ Petition No.6167 of 1988 (O&M) - 4 - allotments to tenants resettled on their lands after having been ejected from some other land holdings.
(3.) All these cases have been engaging the attention of the various authorities under the 1953 Act and the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act of 1972 right from the year 1958. There have been several rounds of litigations previously before this Court, firstly, before the single Judge, later brought to a Division Bench in appeal at the instance of the purchasers and later at the Hon'ble Supreme Court which directed a fresh adjudication before the Financial Controller. The matter related to a consideration of whether the original landowner had given a declaration in Form-E under Section 5B of the 1953 Act giving the details of the property which he wished to reserve as falling within his permissible area. The Financial Controller, after the remand, took a decision on securing a report from the Assistant Collector that Form-E had been given within 6 months from the date of commencement of the Amending Act of 1957, on 19.06.1958. While disposing off the objections raised at the instance of the purchasers, he found that the landowner Madan Gopal had set out his own land holdings which he wished to reserve for his personal cultivation and since the properties sold by him to the petitioners fell outside his permissible area and hence treated as surplus. Therefore, the purchasers had no right to clim the properties as their own. The Financial Commissioner approached the whole issue only from the standpointCivil Writ Petition No.6167 of 1988 (O&M) - 5 - of whether the purchasers could have asked for the properties purchased by them to be shown within the permissible area of the landowner. Here was the first flaw in the consideration of the Financial Commissioner, as canvassed by the learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners.;