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Judgment
K. Kannan, J.
CM No. 4334-CII of 2011
CM allowed. A copy of the sanad filed by the petitioners is taken on record as Annexure P-3.
Civil Writ Petition No. 10431 of 1989 (O&M)
The order in challenge through this writ petition was an adjudication made on title u/s 11 of the Village Common Lands Act as applicable to Punjab. The reference for an adjudication came in proceedings for ejectment filed by the panchayat u/s 7 of the said Act. The claim of the panchayat was that the property was shamlat deh which vested with the panchayat and the respondents'' possession of the property constituted an unauthorized occupation liable for ejectment. The authority through the impugned order found that the property was shamlat deh and the petitioners'' occupation could not, therefore, be sustained.
The contention all along for the petitioners was that this property had been an evacuee property and notified as such and it was assigned by the Government through the functionaries under the Displaced Persons (Compensation & Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 and a sanad issued on 05.04.1971. A copy of the sanad was tiled before the Court as Annexure P-3. A copy of the document, which is filed here before this Court, was not tiled before the authority, but the justification for the petitioners was that the official from the gram panchayat himself had admitted that this property had been transferred by the Government in favour of the petitioners. The sanad issued by the petitioners contains several items including the property in dispute is khasra No. 15710 of an area of 1 kanal 16 marlas classified as Barani/III.
The learned counsel points out that if the assignment by the Government in favour of the petitioners was erroneous or wrong as an aggrieved person, the panchayat itself must have taken appropriate action under the above said Act of 1954 and cannot independently claim an ejectment treating the properly as a common land falling within the classification of shamlat deh. I take the sanad as constituting a proof to the fact that it is a property assigned in favour of the petitioners and the dispossession cannot be termed to be unauthorized or unlawful liable for ejectment. The finding of title in favour of the panchayat shall, under the circumstances, be unjustified and the petitioners are entitled to a declaration that they are the owners, being grantees under the Act referred to above.
The impugned order is quashed and the writ petition is allowed.