- (1.) Bhagwan Singh petitioner of village Wandar Jatana of Faridkot Tehsil after receiving notice under Section 32-B of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, filed his return showing the following holdings :- Ownership area 45.55 Standard Acres. Mortgaged area 12.36 Standard Acres. Total : 57.91 Standard Acres. Excluding an area of 21 11 standard acres which had been validly sold by the petitioner, the Collector computed the holding of the petitioner to be 36.80 standard acres. Allowing the permissible area to be 30 standard acres, 6.80 standard acres was declared as surplus by the Agrarian Collector on 18th of August, 1960.
(2.) Sometime after the Collector's order, an area of 48 Kanals and 13 Marlas at one time and 10 Kanals and 14 Marlas at another, was redeemed by the mortgagors after payment of the mortgage money. Thus, the petitioner as a mortgagee came to lose this area of 59 Kanals and 7 Marlas. In the impugned order (annexure P) the Commissioner of the Patiala Division considered that the mortgaged area was in fact an application by the petitioner and was liable to be taken into account in reckoning the surplus area. This is a position which is wholly untenable. The petitioner was only a mortgagee with respect to the area which subsequently came to be redeemed by the mortgagors. The area under mortgage with the petitioner could not be regarded as land under his ownership. The matter is indeed covered by authority. In Bishan Singh v. State of Punjab, 1968 PunLJ 259, Mahajan, J. held that - "Whenever land is redeemed by a mortgagor there is no transfer by a landlord. Only a voluntary transfer is covered by the Act and not an involuntary transfer." I am in respectful agreement with the view of the learned Judge, who had followed an earlier judgment of Narula, J. in Bhajan Lal and others v. State of Punjab, 1968 PunLJ 213. It is admitted that if the area which has been redeemed is excluded from the holding of the petitioner, the petitioner would become a small landowner and no area of the land under his ownership can be declared surplus.
(3.) In the clear view of the matter, the order of the Commissioner cannot be upheld and is accordingly quashed. The petitioner did not go in revision against the order of the Commissioner, Patiala Division, passed on 23rd March, 1964. This, however, is not a defect which is fatal to the entertainment of this petition.;