S. Teja Singh and another vs Tehsildar Narwana

Teja Singh, C.J.—This is a petition for issue of writs of certiorari and mandamus against Tahsildar Narwana. The petitioners are Sardars Teja Singh and Chiranjit Singh sons of the late S. Gurbakash Singh who was a biswedar of village Harnampura. The petitioners'' allegation is that in spite of the fact that the land in village Harnampura belonged to them and they were entitled to its produce the Tahsildar made an order on or about 2-5-1951, by which he took the produce of the land for Rabi 2008 in his own charge and deprived the petitioners of it. They further allege that the action of the Tahsildar was illegal and pray that his order be quashed and he be asked to hand over the produce to the petitioners.

The learned Advocate-General who appears on behalf of the Tahsildar has put in a written statement in which the whole position has been explained. According to him an application was made to the Tahsildar by the tenants of the land complaining that the landlord''s Mukhtar demanded from them something over and above the share of the produce to which the landlords were entitled and since this created a dispute between them and the landlords and subjected the tenants to hardship they prayed that an arbitrator be appointed for the appraisement and division of the produce. The application with the report of the Naib-Tahsildar on it came up before the Tahsildar on 1-5-1951, whereupon he appointed two persons as referees for the appraisement and division of the produce u/s 17 of the Tenancy Act. The learned Advocate-General contends that since the order made by the Tahsildar was administrative one the Court could not issue any writ in respect thereof.

I have satisfied myself from the perusal of the Tansildar''s record produced by the Advocate-General in Court that a petition alleging a kind of dispute between the tenants and the landlords was made to the Tahsildar and that it was on the basis of that petition that the Tahsildar made the order appointing the referees. The petitioners'' allegation that the Tahsildar took charge of the produce is incorrect, but I cannot blame the petitioners for this wrong statement because that they applied to the Tahsildar for copies of the order and the Tahsildar refused to give them any copy on the ground that his order was administrative. I have no hesitation in holding that the view taken by the Tahsildar regarding the nature of his order was entirely incorrect and that an order passed u/s 17 by a Revenue Officer is quasi-judicial. A perusal of Sections 18 and 19 of the Tenancy Act would strengthen this view. Section 18 deals with the procedure to be followed by the referees and sub-section (3) of it lays down that before making the division or appraisement the referee shall give notice to the landlord and the tenant of the time and the place at which the division or appraisement would be made and if either the landlord or the tenant fails to attend either personally or by an agent the referee might proceed ex parte. Section 19 provides that the result of the division or appraisement shall be recorded and signed by the referee and the record shall be submitted to the Revenue Officer, and further that the Revenue Officer shall consider the record and after such further inquiry, if any, as he may deem necessary, shall make an order either confirming or varying the division or appraisement. In the face of clear words of Section 19 it is futile to urge that the action of a Revenue Officer u/s 17 is only administrative. In the view that I take I cannot help observing that had the Tahsildar not refused a copy of his order to the petitioners probably the remedy sought by the petitioners would have been different and instead of putting the Tahsildar in Court they would have proceeded against the referees.

It is urged by the petitioners'' Counsel that since the referees have not so far taken any proceedings u/s 18 and the produce of the land is lying unbarred for the petitioners have suffered a great loss thereby. This may be correct, but the trouble is that the referees are not before me and the written statement of the learned Advocate-General does not throw any light on the question whether or not the referees have taken any steps for the division or appraisement of the produce. Probably they have not taken any proceedings because if they had the result of division or appraisement would have been reported to the Tahsildar u/s 19 and the fact that the written statement of the Advocate-General put in on behalf of the Tahsildar is silent on the point raises the presumption that this has not been done.

The question now is whether in view of the facts brought to light by the Advocate-General any kind of writ can be issued to the Tahsildar and on giving the matter my careful consideration I answer the question in the negative. The Tahsildar, as I have already pointed out acted on the petition of the tenants and since the tenants came forward with the allegation that there was a dispute between them and the landlords regarding the division of the produce he was justified in appointing referees for the division of the produce. Mr. Atma Ram, counsel for the petitioners urged that before taking any step u/s 17, it was the Tahsildar''s duty to issue a notice to the landlords but no provision for a notice is made in Section 17. In fact my opinion is that taking into consideration the fact that Section 17 is intended to deal with emergent cases, such as a case where the landlord refuses to divide the produce of the land with the tenant with a view to subjecting the tenant to hardship or putting him to loss, insistence upon notice to the other side would defeat the very object of the provisions of law. In the circumstances the petition must fail and is dismissed, but as it appears to me that the main reason why the petitioners put in the petition against the Tahsildar and the form in which they did so, was that the Tahsildar wrongly disallowed them a copy of his order. I direct that the respondent shall bear his own costs.

Before concluding I may mention that originally there were two respondents in the case, the Tahsildar Narwana and the State of Patiala & E.P. States Union. The State was given up by the petitioners later on and consequently its name was ordered to be struck off with the result that the Tahsildar remained the only respondent in the case. The learned Advocate-General, who appears on behalf of the State as well as the Tahsildar, urges that since no notice was given to the State that it was no longer the respondent in the case costs should be awarded in its favour. Ordinarily when a party is given up behind his back and no notice of this fact is given to him with the result that he appears in Court to defend the cause, he is entitled to costs but the circumstances of the case go to show that the petitioners were not entirely to blame in starting these proceedings and impleading the State as a respondent along with the Tahsildar. Apart from the fact that they did not know what order the Tahsildar had passed their efforts to get a copy of the order proved abortive. Then it appears that before coming to Court they approached all high officials of the State including the Chief Secretary, the Financial Commissioner, the Revenue Minister and the Revenue Commissioner but did not get any reply from them telling them what the real position was. That is what they definitely alleged in the petition and the correctness of the allegation was not denied by the learned Advocate-General. Accordingly I order that the State shall also bear its own costs.