- (1.)The short point involved in this case is whether the Additional Director, Consolidation of Holdings, has any jurisdiction to review his previous order given on merits, on the ground that a fraud was committed by the successful petitioner by changing the date in the order under revision and thus indicating that the petition before the Additional Director was within time.
(2.)The original petition under Section 42 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was filed by Sewa Singh and others. In the certified copy of the order of the Assistant Director, which was the order under revision, the date of the completion and delivery of the copy was said to be 26th February, 1965, but before placing the copy on the record alognwith the petition the date was changed to 26th April, 1965, so as to bring the petition within limitation. In view of this Rulia Singh did not and could not raise an objection of bar of limitation. The matter was consequently, examined by the Additional Director on merits and finding that the petitioners, Sewa Singh and others, deserved some relief, altered the order of the Assistant Collector to some extent. This order was passed on 25th March, 1966.
(3.)Thereafter, a review application was filed by Rulia Singh before a successor of the Additional Director suggesting that in the earlier case there has been tampering with the date of completion of the copy of the order. The learned Additional Director went into the question, whether the date has been altered, as urged, and he gave a finding to the following effect :-
"............ From the evidence discussed above it is clear that the date of completion/delivery of the copy was 26-2-65 and not 26-4-65 ............ Calculating, therefore, from 26-2-65, the petition should have been filed by 23-7-65, whereas actually it was filed on 11-10-65. Thus, it was clearly time barred at the time of presentation."

With regard to the contention raised on behalf of the other party that the tampering could have been done subsequent to the order of the Additional Director dated 25th March, 1966, the learned Additional Director observed as under :-

"If they had not depended for limitation on the date 26-4-65, they would have certainly given some explanation or the other for not filing the petition within limitation. This lends great weight to the contention of the petitioner that the decision was obtained by the respondents by a fraud."

hereafter, he noticed the fact that the Additional Director has no power of review even if the order is wrong or erroneous, but he distinguished the case before him and observed as follows :-

"But the instant case stands on a different footing. Had the fraud come to the knowledge of the Additional Director while passing the impugned order, the result would have been different. There is nothing on the record to show that this fact was in the notice of the Additional Director. Thus, the order passed by the Additional Director was the result of a fraud which would thus be null and void. In the circumstances, I accept the petition and reviewing the order dated 25.3.1966 set it aside."