- (1.) The petitioner owns land in village Umarpura, Tehsil Malerkotla, District Sangrur. By order dated August 22, 1964, the Special Collector, Punjab, declared 12.06 standard acres as surplus area with the petitioner. His appeal against that order was dismissed by the Commissioner, Patiala Division, Patiala, on May 10, 1965. He filed a revision petition which was rejected by the Financial Commissioner by order dated October 25, 1965 with the following observations :- "The appropriate course for the petitioner, however, will be to apply to the competent authority for action being taken on this basis in the terms of Section 32-MM of the Pepsu Act No. 13 of 1955 and his claim will no doubt be dealt with by such authority according to law." Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner filed the present petition to which a written statement has been filed by the respondents.
(2.) The only point argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the surplus area did not vest in the State Government under Section 32-D of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, (hereinafter called 'the Act') because possession was never taken by the Government before the holding was subjected to consolidation operation, as a result of which the holding diminished by 17 standard kanals. His objection to the observations of the learned Financial Commissioner is that the petitioner is not entitled to fresh reservation under Section 32-MM of the Act whereas if the case had been remanded to the Special Collector for re-decision, he would have been entitled to fresh reservation of his permissible area. The other points raised in the petition have not been argued and the learned counsel has confined himself to this point.
(3.) Sub-section (2) of Section 32-MM of the Act, which is relevant for the decision of this case, reads as under :- "Where, after the declaration of the surplus area of any person and before the utilisation thereof, his land has been subjected to the process of consolidation, the officers referred to in sub-section (1) shall be competent to separate the surplus area of such person out of the area of land obtained by him after consolidation.";