Gram Panchayat vs The Director, Consolidation of Holdings and Others

V.K. Jhanji, J.—In this writ petition, the challenge is to order dated 31.10.1995 of the Director, Consolidation of Holdings, Punjab, Jalandhar (Annexure P3), whereby the land has been ordered to be partitioned on an application filed by the proprietors u/s 42 of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948.

In Civil Miscellaneous Application No. 17920 of 1998, prayer made is to quash the order of the Director, Consolidation of Holdings, Jalandhar on the ground that the matter is squarely covered by the decision of the Supreme Court in Gram Panchayat Kakran v. Additional Director of Consolidation 1997(2) P.LJ. 375.

After hearing the learned counsel and going through the record, I am of the view that prayer made in this application deserves to be allowed.

The issue raised in the writ petition is squarely covered by the decisions of the Supreme Court rendered in Gram Panchayat, Kakran (supra), a Division Bench of this Court in Gram Panchayat, Village Surajpur v. Director, Consolidation of Holdings and Ors., Civil Writ Petition No. 16747 of 1996 decided on November 4, 1997 and Civil Writ Petition No. 11771 of 1996 decided on March 26, 1998. Consequently, the writ petition is allowed and the order dated 31.10.1995 passed by the Director, Consolidation of Holdings, Jalandhar (Annexure P3) shall stand quashed. C.M. shall also stand allowed.