- (1.) THE facts of these two references, one in Civil Writ No. 1594 of 1966, Hardial singh, Gurdial Singh, Gurcharan Singh and Harcharan Singh, petitioners v. The Director of Consolidation of Holdings, Additional Director of Consolidation of holdings, Settlement Officer, and Nanak Singh, respondents 1 to 4, and the other in Civil Writ No. 378 of 1969, Mohinder Singh and Gurdial Sinnh, petitioners v. State of Haryana, the Assistant Consolidation Officer, Sadhu Singh and Gurcharan singh, respondents 1 to 4, are as below.
(2.) IN the first case consolidation of holdings began in village Khandoor in the year 1964. In the scheme of consolidation a path was provided from village Khandoor to the land of Santa Singh, father of the petitioners, in the area of the adjoining village Chokhar along the land allotted in repartition to respondent 4. In an application under Section 42 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 (East Punjab Act 50 of 1948), respondent 4 sought relief that the path provided to the land of Santa Singh be deleted because another path is available from village Khandoor to village Cho-khar. Respondent 2, Additional Director of Consolidation of Holdings, accepting the application of respondent 4, set aside the order of respondent 3, Settlement officer, of November 18, 1964, whereby the path in question had been provided in the scheme, and made consequential chances by his order, copy annexure 'c' to the petition, of February 10, 1966. In their petition the sons of Santa Singh have prayed that that order of respondent 2 be quashed. In paragraphs 9 and 10 of the petition the petitioners have taken the position that respondent 2 disallowed the path in spite of it having been provided in the scheme, and that he had no power to vary such a provision of the scheme for the sake of one right-holder (respondent 4 ). There are of course other grounds of attack so far as the order of respondent 2 is concerned, but those are not material for the present purpose. In the second case in the draft scheme of consolidation of holdings in village Patti khurampur Majri a part of survey No. 623, under garden, was reserved in the scheme for the petitioners as garden area. On an application by the petitioners the settlement Officer on July 2, 1966, cancelled that reservation from the scheme because the petitioners requested for that, giving up his claim for the fruit trees. While making that order the Settlement Officer reduced the valuation of survey no. 623 from sixteen annas to fourteen annas. In repartition, this survey No. 623 came to the lot of one Inder Ram, on whose objections under Section 21 (2) of the act the Consolidation Officer changed his lot with respondents 3 and 4, who then filed an appeal against that order under Section 21 (3) of the Act before the settlement Officer, in which appeal, among others, the petitioners were made respondents. The copy of the order of the Settlement Officer is annexure 'a' to this petition, and therein one of the objections of respondents 3 and 4 was that contrary to the provisions in the scheme for making adjustments according to a right-holder's major portion, they had been given as overflow the inferior quality land of the petitioners, obviously referring to the land of survey No. 623. The settlement Officer says in his order that he found that this land of the petitioners' was of inferior quality and in spite of that it was valued at fourteen annas and that respondents 3 and 4, to whom it came to be allotted, had been hard-hit. He, therefore, gave back the area of this survey number to the petitioners. On a second appeal by the petitioners from, the appellate order of the Settlement officer, the Assistant Director of Consolidation of Holdings on February 21, 1968, set aside that order. Against the order of the Assistant Director of Consolidation of holdings, respondents 3 and 4 made an application under Section 42 of the Act, which was disposed of by respondent 1 on November 28, 1968. It appears from the order of respondent 1, copy annexure 'c', that in another case the matter had also been referred to him by the Assistant Director of Consolidation of Holdings under Section 42 of the Act. Respondent 1 accepted an argument on the side of respondents 3 and 4 that inferior quality land of the petitioners of survey No. 623 had been given to those respondents. He, therefore, allowed the application and made changes giving back the inferior quality land of survey No. 623 to the petitioners. In paragraph 10 (vii) of their petition the petitioners have stated that they were given their major portion according to the scheme and that major portion could not include survey No. 623. So the order of respondent 1 giving back to them their survey No. 623 is against the scheme as thereby the land allotted to them has come in two blocks and they have been fitted at a place where according to the scheme they could not be fitted. There are again in this petition also other grounds of attack against the order of respondent 1, but those are not material here.
(3.) ON the facts as given above in these two petitions, among other questions, two questions as given below came for consideration before P. C. Jain, J. , and the learned Judge has by his orders of reference made on October 7, 1969, referred the same to a larger Bench- (1) Can a scheme be amended in an individual case by the Additional director, Consolidation of Holdings, under Section 42 of the Act? (2) If answer to the first question is in the affirmative, what is the nature and extent of opportunity of hearing that must be given to a party affected by such an order in view of the proviso to Section 42 of the Act? these are the two questions that are for consideration of this Bench.;