Sube Singh and Others vs The State of Haryana and Others

P.C. Jain, J.—Sube Singh and others have filed this appeal under Clause X of the Letters Patent against the judgment and order of a learned Single Judge of this Court, dated 15th of October. 1979, by which their writ petition (C. W. P. No. 425 of 1971) was dismissed.

In order to appreciate the controversy raised before us, certain salient features of the case may be noticed. Bhalle Ram is a big landowner. The Collector (Agrarian Reforms) Jind, declared certain lands in his hands as surplus on 15th of July, 1961 and the land so declared was allotted in the year 1964-65 to Badlu and others private Respondents. However, the possession of the land was not given to them. The present Appellants are the son and daughters of Bhalle Ram. They filed a civil suit at Jind on 6th of January, 1967 for declaration that Bhalle Ram had died a civil death and that the estate left by him had devoted on them. A decree was passed in their favour and on the basis of that decree, the Appellants filed an application before the Collector on 30th of August, 1967 praying that the land declared surplus in the hands of their father bad not been utilised, that they had become the owners of the same by inheritance, that they were small land owners and that the said land could not be allotted to the private Respondents. The application was accepted by the Collector.

It appears that the private Respondents were not made parties to that application On coming to know about that order, the private Respondents filed an appeal before the Commissioner, who accepted the same and set aside the order of the Collector. The revision filed by the Appellants was dismissed by the Financial Commissioner. Feeling aggrieved from the orders of the revenue authorities, the Appellants preferred a petition which as earlier observed was dismissed by the learned Single Judge.

The main contention raised before us by the learned Counsel for the Appellants was that it was incumbent on the Commissioner as well as the Financial Commissioner to have given a finding with regard to the question whether Bhalle Ram had died civilly or not. According to the learned Counsel, the Collector did not go into this question, that the Appellants were not afforded any opportunity to lead evidence and that even if reliance could not be placed on the judgment of the Civil Court as Respondents were not party to that judgment, then after allowing the parties to lead evidence, a finding was necessary to be given by the revenue authorities on the aforesaid question.

After hearing the learned Counsel for the parties, we find considerable force in this contention of the learned Counsel. There is no gainsaying that the Collector did not give any independent finding and just relied on the judgment of the Civil Court with regard to the question of Bhalle Ram having died civilly. It is also quite evident that the Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner did not give any finding in this respect. If no reliance was to be placed on the judgment of the Civil Court, then the Appellants were entitled to show independently that their father had died civilly and that they were entitled to get the land in dispute. When the Commissioner had come to the conclusion that reliance could not be placed on the Civil Court judgment, then the proper course to be adopted by him was to have remanded the case to the Collector for deciding the question of Bhalle Ram having died civilly, but that course was not adopted. In this view of the matter, we are unable to agree with the learned Single Judge that the Commissioner was not bound to give a fresh finding in this respect, as no finding in that respect had been given by the Collector. In the view we have taken, it is not necessary for us to go into the other contentions of the learned Counsel for the Appellants.

For the reasons recorded above, we allow this appeal, set aside the judgment of the learned Single Judge and also the orders of the Financial Commissioner, dated 25th January, 1971 (Annexure D), Commissioner, dated 23rd June, 1969 (Annexure BB) and Collector (Agrarian Reforms) Jind dated 31st of August, 1967 (Annexure A) and send back the case to Collector (Agrarian Reforms), Jind for deciding the whole matter afresh on the merits after affording full opportunity of hearing to the parties. In the circumstances of the case, we make no order as to costs.