KIRAN ANAND LALL, J. - (1.) IN this Regular Second Appeal, the appellant-State has challenged judgment and decree dated 9.8.1982 of the learned Additional District Judge, Sonepat vide which he upheld the verdict of trial Court decreeing the suit of Chander Singh plaintiff (since deceased) for possession of the suit land. Chander Singh having died, Dharam Pal etc. were substituted as his legal representatives.
(2.) THE claim of Chander Singh, in the suit, was that he had been in possession of the suit land, as a tenant under its previous owner viz, the proprietary body of village Purkhas, since kharif 1967, and prior to him, his father was tenant on it since the year 1954. Later on, the appellant-State became its owner and mutation was sanctioned in its favour on 31.7.1971. But, possession over it, even thereafter, remained to be his. However, the appellant-State got an application under Section 4 of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1973 (for short "the Act") filed for his ejectment on the ground that his possession over it was unauthorised. The Collector, Sonepat allowed the application and ordered his ejectment vide order dated 24.7.1974, copy Ex.P2. Even in appeal filed before the Commissioner, Ambala Division, he remained unsuccessful as the Commissioner upheld the order of ejectment. He, thereupon, filed Civil Writ Petition No. 4585 of 1975 for the quashing of orders of the Collector and the Commissioner, and obtained stay order against his ejectment, on 5.8.1975. Inspite of that, the appellant took forcible possession from him and got a fictitious entry made in the Rojnamcha of the Patwari, indicating that possession had been taken from him on 14.7.1975, in execution of the ejectment order. The proprietary body of the village filed a suit against the appellant-State for cancellation of the mutation, while Chander Singh filed the present suit against it, for obtaining possession of the land. In written statement, the appellant-State admitted that Chander Singh had remained in cultivating possession of the suit land, as a tenant under the proprietary body of the village, from kharif 1968 upto 30.7.1971 i.e. the date it was mutated in its (of appellant) favour. It was further admitted that the possession of land continued to remain with Chander Singh even after the appellant became its owner. But it was pleaded that the revenue authorities delivered possession of the land to the State, on 14.7.1975, in execution of the ejectment orders. It was denied that Chander Singh had been dispossessed on 6.8.1975.
(3.) BOTH the courts below found that the suit land had remained in the possession of Chander Singh, as a tenant, since kharif 1967. The trial court further found that he was dispossessed therefrom on 6.8.1975 while the first Appellate Court slightly modified this finding by holding that he was dispossessed on 14.7.1975 i.e. before the passing of stay order in the writ petition.;