Bal Raj Tuli, J. - (1.) THIS judgment will dispose of L.P.A. Nos. 662, 663, 664 and 668 of 1974 and Civil Writ No. 6362 of 1974, as common questions of law are involved.
(2.) THE Appellants and the Petitioner in C.W. 6362 of 1974 are residents of villages comprised in the controlled area of Union Territory of Chandigarh within the meaning of the Punjab New Capital (Periphery) Control Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). They erected certain constructions on their lands without obtaining the permission of the Deputy Commissioner under Section 6 of the Act and notices were, therefore, issued to them under Section 12(2) of the Act to show cause why the unauthorised constructions should not be demolished. Their applications for permission to grant ex post facto permission for the constructions already made were refused by the Deputy Commissioner. Since they refused to demolish the unauthorised constructions, warrants for the demolition of the constructions were issued by the Deputy Commissioner. At that stage, the Appellants and the Petitioner filed their writ petitions for staying the operation of the impugned orders of the Deputy Commissioner for demolition of their structures. The writ petitions, oat of which the above mentioned letters patent appeals have arisen, were dismissed by the learned Single Judge by order dated November 28, 1974. C. W. 6362 of 1974 was admitted on December 6, 1974, and was ordered to be heard along with L.P.A. 662 of 1974. All these cases have, therefore, been heard together. The first point seriously urged by the learned Counsel for the Appellants and the Petitioner is that there is no valid notification under Section 3(1) of the Act declaring the whole or any part of the area to be a 'controlled area' for the purposes of the Act and, therefore, the provisions of the Act are not applicable to the constructions made by them. In support of this plea, it has been submitted that the provisions of Section 3(2) and Section 4 of the Act were not complied with and, therefore, the notification issued under Section 3(1) of the Act was of no effect. In order to appreciate this submission, it is necessary to set out Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Act, as were in force in 1953 when the notification under Section 3(1) was issued. These sections read as under: 3(1). The State Government may by notification in the official Gazette declare the whole or any part of the area to which this Act extends to be a controlled area for the purposes of this Act. (2) Not less than three months before making a declaration under Sub -section (1), the State Government shall cause to be published in the official Gazette, and in at least two newspapers printed in a language other than English, a notification stating that it proposes to make such a declaration, and copies of the notification or of the substance thereof shall be published by the Deputy Commissioner in such manner as may be prescribed at his office and in the area desired to be controlled. 4(1). The Deputy Commissioner shall within three months of the declaration under Sub -section (1) of Section 3 deposit at his office and at such other places as he considers necessary , plans showing the area declared to be a 'controlled area' for the purposes of this Act, signifying therein the nature of the restrictions applicable to the controlled area. (2) The plans so deposited shall be in the form prescribed and shall be available for inspection by the public free of charge at all reasonable times. 5. Except as provided hereinafter, no person shall erect or re -erect any building or make or extend any excavation, or lay out any means of access to a road, in the controlled area save in accordance with the plans and restrictions and with the previous permission of the Deputy Commissioner in writing. The analysis of these sections shows that the Government had to take the following steps for declaring the whole or any part of the area as controlled area for the purposes of the Act: 1. Not less than three months before issuing notification under Section 3(1), the State Government had to publish in the official Gazette, and in at least two newspapers printed in a language other than English, a notification stating that it proposes to make such a declaration; 2. Copies of the notification or of the substance thereof were to be published by the Deputy Commissioner in such manner as may be prescribed at his office and in the area desired to be controlled. 3. After the expiry of three months the notification containing the declaration was to be issued under Section 3(1) of the Act; and
(3.) WITHIN three months of the declaration under Section 3(1), the Deputy Commissioner was to deposit at his office and at such other places as he considered necessary plans showing the area declared to be controlled area for the purposes of the Act. signifying therein the nature of the restrictions applicable to the controlled area. The plans so deposited were to be in the form prescribed and they were to be available for inspection by the public free of charge at all reasonable times. It is admitted by the parties that notification under Section 3(2) of the Act was published in the official Gazette dated February 27, 1953, and in two newspapers printed in a language other than English, that is, 'Hind Smachar' and 'Ajit' Jullundur in the month of April, 1953. Thereafter, the notification under Section 3(1) was published in the official Gazette dated September 5, 1953. It is submitted on behalf of the Appellants and the Petitioner that the copies of the notification under Section 3(2) or of the substance thereof were not published by the Deputy Commissioner at his office and in the area desired to be controlled for the simple reason that no rules had been framed by that time providing the manner of such publication. The word "prescribed" is defined in Section 2(5) of the Act to mean prescribed by rules made under the Act. Admittedly, the rules made under the Act were published in the official Gazette dated May 15, 1959, on which date they came into force. There were thus no rules in 1953 providing the manner of the publication of the copies of the notification or the substance thereof as mentioned in Section 3(2) of the Act. But, it is urged on behalf of the Respondents that the copies of the notification were published at the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Ambala, Sub -Divisional Officer (Civil), Ropar, Tahsildar, Kharar, Naib Tahsildar, Kalka, and Tahsildar, Capital Project, Chandigarh. Publicity was also given to the notification at all conspicuous places, that is, the tahsil and 'district headquarters and by beat of drum in the villages concerned. The manner of publication provided in Rule 3 of the 1959 Rules, is as under: 3. The notification under Sub -section (2) of Section 3 of the Act shall be displayed on the notice board outside the offices of the Deputy Commissioner and all the Panchayat Houses and Patwar -khanas in the controlled area. The announcement shall also be made by beat of drum in all the villages situated in the controlled area and affected by the provisions of the notification. Although this rule was not there in 1953, more than substantial compliance was made with the requirements of that rule then. To me, it appears that the well known modes of publication was adopted by the Deputy Commissioner when notification under Section 3(2) of the Act was issued. Even if it is conceded that in the absence of the manner of publication in the villages comprised in the controlled area having been prescribed by the rules, no publication was made in that manner, it is not disputed that all the other four methods of publication were adopted, that is, notification in the official Gazette, notification in 'Hind Smachar', Jullundur, notification in 'Ajit, Jullundur, and copy of the notification exhibited at the office of the Deputy Commissioner. Under these circumstances, it cannot be said that the condition precedent to the publication of the notification under Section 3(1) was not fully or very substantially complied with. The notification under Section 3(1) was issued more than six months after the publication of the notification under Section 3(2) in the official Gazette and more than four months after its publication in the two newspapers. There was thus ample publicity given to that notification. After the expiry of more than twenty years, it cannot be held that the notification under Section 3(1) was not made in accordance with law. Under Section 114 of the Evidence Act, there is a presumption that all official acts have been regularly performed. Onus heavily lay upon the Appellants and the Petitioner to prove that what has been stated in the return filed by the Respondents with regard to the publication of the notice was not correct. 4. The learned Counsel for the Appellants and the Petitioner have strongly relied on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Bishan Singh v. The Central Government and Ors., 1961 P.L.R. 75, for the proposition that in the absence of the rules the compliance with the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act was not possible and, therefore, any action taken in the absence of the rules, that is, the notification issued under Section 3(1) of the Act, was invalid and could not be enforced. That case related to Section 8 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, which provided that a displaced person was to be paid out of the compensation pool the amount of net compensation determined under Sub -section (3) of Section 7 as being payable to him and subject to any rules that may be made under that Act. The Petitioner in that case was a displaced person from West Pakistan who had settled at Jullundur after migration to India and in lieu of his agricultural land within the Corporation area of Lahore, he was given on lease 46 kanals of evacuee agricultural land within the municipal area of Jullundur City. His lease was renewed from year to year and thus he had remained in possession throughout. Instead of framing rules under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act as to the manner in which urban agricultural lands were to be permanently transferred, the Central Government issued a press note prescribing the manner thereof. In accordance with that press note, the Settlement Commissioner, Jullundur, informed the Petitioner that only one khasra number valued at Rs. 10,000 could be transferred to him. That order was challenged on the ground that the press notes and the memorandum had neither been incorporated in the Act nor in the Rules and, therefore, amounted to mere executive instructions which had no statutory force and the Petitioner was entitled to get the whole of the area under lease with him or at least that much area whose value did not exceed Rs. 10,000 by setting off its valuation against the compensation payable to him and he could not be deprived of the same by the press notes and the memorandum. It was held that it was necessary for the Central Government to frame the rules for the class of displaced persons like the Petitioner in that case and if the Government did not frame any rules, the press notes and the memorandum could not be acted upon as if they amounted to rules under the Act. There is no dispute about the ratio decidendi of that decision but it is not applicable to the cases in hand. As I have pointed out above, only one of the various modes of publication could not be adopted because of the absence of the rules but all other modes were adopted and wide publicity was given to that notification by beat of drum in the villages affected and by exhibiting the notification outside the various offices of the Deputy Commissioner, Tahsildar etc. The publication of the notification declaring the controlled area did not depend on the making of the rules under the Act. The provisions of Section 3 were capable of compliance substantially even without the rules. The requirement of prescribing the mode of publication at the office of the Deputy Commissioner or in the villages affected was, thus directory in nature, as has been held by the learned Single Judge.;