K.KANNAN, J. - (1.) THE petitioner Beant Singh is before this court on a challenge to the orders passed by the authorities under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act of 1954. The litigation is a fallout of the partition qualms of a person who had been allotted the properties provisionally for properties that were forsaken at the places now in Pakistan. Like him, four of his brothers Gurmukh Singh, Rajinder Singh, Balwant Singh and Basant Singh, who had also been allotted properties based on their mutalba claims. The brothers made out a case of oral partition and specific enjoyment of properties in Pakistan and the allotments of corresponding value initially were provisional, in the sense that the claims had to be verified with reference to the jamabandi entries that were entered in the places in Pakistan. After the documentary verification was done, there had been a reappraisal of the extent of holdings and the contest was essentially between two brothers Beant Singh and Basant Singh. The orders sought to resolve the dispute in favour of Basant Singh's claim when he pleaded that some of the properties that had been purportedly allotted to him were actually properties held by him benami for his brother, Beant Singh. The reckoning of such properties were to be held made only as properties in the possession of Beant Singh and the reappraisal to be done on that basis. This was accepted and Beant Singh is aggrieved by these orders.
(2.) SOME more factual details would require to be set forth to identify the areas of dispute and the scope of enquiry. All the brothers named above had made their claims by filing statements in the year 1948. They contended at that time that in an oral partition brought about among the brothers, all the properties of about 256 acres except 15 acres of land in Chak No.51 at Pakistan had been allotted to all four brothers (Gurmukh Singh, Rajinder Singh, Balwant Singh and Basant Singh), while 15 acres in Chak No.51 and the whole of Chak No.43 of an extent of 193 acres had been left in the possession of Beant Singh, all of which were abandoned by them at the time of partition of the country. This was accepted and allotments were made provisionally to all of them on the basis of the mutalba claims made by parties, making reference to properties respectively held by them. The parties' contention was that Chak No.51 was higher in value than Chak No.43 and hence, the larger extents of allotment in oral partition to one brother, namely, Beant Singh. None of the four brothers had made any claim for allotment for the property equivalent to the land in Chak No.43. When the provisional allotments were made and parties handed over possession, it was specially stated that the allotments were subject to verification of the records from Pakistan.
(3.) WHEN the jamabandis arrived, it was seen that Chak No.43 had not been merely recorded in the name of only Beant Singh but in the names of all persons. This was taken to be a ground for re -allotment and initially the authorities had taken the view that the entitlements of properties will have to be handled only in the manner in which the jamabandi entries revealed. The department pointed out that a case of oral partition had been deliberately introduced by the brothers to cause loss to the compensation pool by making possible the allotment of about 30 acres more than what would have been possible if all the brothers were to be taken as equally entitled to properties both in Chak No.51 and Chak No.43. The reappraisal which was sought to be done had been the subject of challenge before this court in CWP No.1412 of 1962 and CWP No.1284 of 1964. The High Court directed that the brothers' statements to obtain primacy about how they had partitioned the property already and how the statements had been made.;