Harbans Singh, J. - (1.) THE facts giving rise to this writ petition briefly stated are as under. Shri Nanak Chand owned agricultural land in Bahawalpur State now in West Pakistan. He had also some property at Kot Kapura, tehsil Faridkot, now in district Bhatinda. This Nanak Chand had come to Bhatinda in due course of his business when he died there in the month of June (947 and was survived by his three sons, Om Parkash, Sat Narain and Ram Parshotam. Then followed the partition of the country as a result of which the land originally owned by Shri Nanak Chand and after his death by his sons in Bahawalpur State had to be abandoned. The three sons filed separate claims in accordance with law and obtained allotment of certain area in village Kot Kapura in lieu of the land abandoned in Pakistan. On a complaint being made by one Rur Singh the matter was gone into by the Rehabilitation authorities and ultimately Mr. Tandon, Chief Settlement Commissioner, Punjab, held that notwithstanding the fact that Nanak Chand had died long before the partition of the country he must be treated as the 'displaced landholder' for the purpose of allotment of land in view of the fact that his name continued to be shown as the owner of the abandoned land in the Jamabandi. As a result of this finding a considerable area of land allotted to the petitioners was cancelled. It is against this order that this writ petition is directed.
(2.) IN coming to the decision as stated above the Chief Settlement Commissioner placed reliance on paragraph 17, at page 180, of Tarlok Singh's Land Resettlement Manual, 1952 Edition, which is to the following effect - 17. Even where a displaced landholder in whose name land stands in the records received from West Punjab has died, the allotment is made in the name of the deceased. In the fard taqsim, therefore, the entry will be in the name of the deceased landholder. Possession is ordinarily given to the heirs but there must be regular mutation proceedings before the entry in column 3 of the fard taqsim is altered in favour of the heirs. The contention on behalf of the petitioners is that this paragraph 17 really pertains to the persons who were owners of the land at the time of their migration and later on died before any allotment of land could be made in their favour while the learned Chief Settlement Commissioner has interpreted this paragraph to relate to all persons who continue to be shown as owners in the revenue record, irrespective of the fact whether they had died before or after migration. According to this argument even if a person had died before 1st of March, 1947, when the riots resulting in the partition of the country started, even then the dead person will be treated as a displaced landholder within the meaning of paragraph 17 if between his death and the partition of the country a mutation had not actually been sanctioned and the names of the heirs of the deceased substituted in place of the deceased as the owner. It was urged on behalf of the learned counsel for the petitioners that this interpretation put by the learned Chief Settlement Commissioner is not correct. The learned counsel took me through the various paragraphs of the Land Resettlement Manual and the legislation bearing on the resettlement of the landowners and urged that wherever the expression 'displaced person' or its equal word 'refugee' has been used the reference is only to a person who has migrated to India as a result of the disturbances, fear of disturbances or the partition of the country. He urged that if, in fact, a person had died before there were any disturbances or that person never migrated to India as a result of the disturbances etc. and died before such migration, then he could, under no circumstances, come within the meaning of 'displaced person' and consequently when these words are used in paragraph 17 they are used in the sense of a person who had become a displaced person as a result of the partition of the country but, before he could get an allotment of land or even submit a claim for allotment, had died. The relevant date that was intended to be taken by the Department was the date of the migration. In this connection, in the first instance he referred to paragraph 11 at page 5 where mention is made of the decision taken by the Government to introduce a new scheme of allotment to supersede the original scheme for temporary allotment. The relevant portion runs as follows: From November, 1947, members of the Provincial Relief and Rehabilitation Board began to urge upon Government the necessity of early settlement on land on a permanent basis ****** Proglonged consideration of this question led to the announcement on the 7th February, 1948 of the decision to replace the temporary allotment of the evacuee lands by new system of quasi -permanent allotment which would take account of the holdings of displaced persons in West Punjab. In order to determine what has been left by the "displaced persons" in West Punjab claims were invited and this was done under East Punjab Act No. XII of 1948 (East Punjab Refugees (Registration of Land Claims) Act, 1948). Clause (c) of Section 2 defined 'landholder' as meaning an owner of land * * * and clause (d) defined 'refugee' as follows : 'Refugee' means a landholder in the territories now comprised in the Province of West Punjab, * * * * 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. Subsection (1) of section 4 stated - (1) A refugee may submit to the Registering Officer * * * an application for registration of his claim in respect of his land abandoned by him, or which he has been made to abandon. Reading these provisions together [particularly the words underlined (italicised -Editor) by me], it was urged by the learned counsel for the petitioners, it is clear that the Act dealt with a "refugee" and one of the conditions precedent for a -person to be categorised as a refugee was that he must have abandoned or been made to abandon the land owned by him in the territories now forming province of West Punjab, on account of civil disturbances or fear of such disturbances. So that if a person died before abandoning the land, comprised in the aforesaid territories, on account of "such disturbances he could, by no stretch of imagination, be treated a refugee within the meaning of the Act. In later legislation viz., the East Punjab Displaced Persons (Land Resettlement) Act, 1949, the word 'refugee' was replaced by the words 'displaced person' and these words have continued thereafter to be used for persons who have migrated from areas now in West Pakistan. Clause (c) of section 2 defines words 'displaced person' exactly in the same words as the word 'refugee' in the earlier Act. Same definition is assigned to these words in the notification issued on 8th July, 1949, under sub -section (2) of section 22 of the East Punjab Evacuees' (Administration of Property) Act, 1947, whereby a provision was made for the transfer of the interest of the evacuee to the displaced person. All rules and directions in the matter must necessarily be treated to be in conformity with these legislative provisions and, therefore, it was urged that the words 'displaced person' wherever used in the various paragraphs of the Manual must necessarily mean the person as defined in the Act.
(3.) ACCORDING to the view taken by the Chief Settlement Commissioner entries in the Jamabandi are sacrosanct and if a person is shown in the Jamabandis as the owner he must be treated a 'displaced person' even if it has been established as a fact that he had died before he had migrated from West Pakistan or before he abandoned any land there, as a result of the disturbances.;