ivil Appeal No 778 of 1966
Appeal by special leave from the order dated May 25 1965 of the Punjab High Court in Letters Patent Appeal No 146 of 1965
SV Gupte and Naunit Lal for the appellant
AK Sen SC Mohatta and AD Mathur for respondent No 1
V C Mahajan and RN Sachthey for respondent Nos 2 3 and 4
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Sikri J
This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment and order of the High Court of Punjab in Letters
Patent Appeal No 146 of 1965 whereby the High Court dismissed in limine the Letters Patent Appeal filed by the appellant Surja against the judgment of the learned Single Judge allowing the writ petition filed by the respondent Hardeva
The relevant facts for determining the points raised before us are as follows Hardeva respondent before us is a big landlord of village Panniwala Mota in Sirsa Tahsil of Hissar District
Surja the appellant was an old tenant of Hardeva and had been cultivating the land in dispute since about 1949
Section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 1953 Punj
Act X of 1953 hereinafter referred to as the Act entitles a tenant of a land owner other than a small land owner to purchase from the land owner the land held by him but not included in the reserved area of the land owner if he satisfies the conditions laid down in that section
Section 181  2 may be set out
450 181 Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any law usage or contract a tenant of a land owner other than a small land owner i who has been in continuous occupation of the land comprised in his tenancy for a minimum period of six years or ii who has been restored to his tenancy under the provisions of this Act and whose periods of continuous occupation of the laud comprised in his tenancy immediately before ejectment and immediately after restoration of his tenancy together amounts to six years or more or iii who was ejected from his tenancy after the 14th day of August 1947 and before the commencement of this Act and who was in continuous occupation of the land comprised in his tenancy for a period of six years or more immediately before his ejectment shall be entitled to purchase from the land owner the land so held by him but not included in the reserved area of the land owner in the case of a tenant falling within clause i or clause ii at any time and in the case of a tenant falling within clause iii  within a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Act Provided that no tenant referred to in this subsection shall be entitled to exercise any such fight in respect of the land or any portion thereof if he had sublet the land or the portion as the case may be to any other person during any period of his continuous occupation unless during that period the tenant was suffering from a legal disability or physical infirmity or if a woman was a widow or was unmarried Provided further that if the land
intended to be purchased is held by another tenant who is entitled to preempt the sale under the next preceding section and who is not accepted by the purchasing tenant the tenant in actual occupation shall have the right to pre empt the sale
2 A tenant desirous of purchasing land under sub section 1 shall make an application in writing w an Assistant Collector of the First Grade having jurisdiction over the land concerned and the Assistant Collector after giving notice to the land over and to all other persons interested in the land and after making such inquiry as he thinks fit shall
determine the value of 451 the land which shall be the average of the prices obtaining for similar land in the locality during 10 years immediately preceding the date on which the application is made
 Surja accordingly applied on August 5 1957 to the Collect orHissar District stating that he intended to purchase the land in dispute and that the land is outside the reserved area of the landowner
He further alleged that he had been in possession of the land for the last eight years
Hardeva in his written statement inter alia stated that Surja was in possession of the land only for three or four years
He alleged that Surja had already 150 bighas of cultivable land
He further stated that the land is reserved and for that reason Surja was not entitled to purchase it
In his evidence before the Assistant Collector given on March 25 1958 Hardeva deposed The land is reserved
I do not know whether the land in dispute is reserved or not By his order dated March 31 1959 the Assistant Collector Sirsa held that Surja was entitled to purchase the land in dispute and accordingly fixed the price
Regarding reservation he observed It is admitted by the respondent that they are big land owners and got this land reserved but later on during his very cross examination he denied any knowledge about the reservation
The respondent produced no evidence with regard to having this land got reserved though they are big land owners
 Hardeva thereupon filed an appeal before the Collector and one of the grounds taken was that the Assistant Collector erred in holding that the land in dispute was not reserved land
The Collector by his order dated July 20 1960 dismissed the appeal
It was common ground before him that Hardeva was a big landowner and that Surja had been in continuous possession of the land in dispute for more than six years and the only point he determined was whether with the addition of the 28 bighas and 12 biswas of land which Surja had been permitted to purchase his total area would exceed the permissible area or not
On this point he held in favour of Surja and accordingly dismissed the appeal 
Hardeva then filed a revision before the Commissioner
In the grounds of revision dated October 27 1960 various grounds were taken but there was no ground regarding reservation of land or selection of land under section 5 B of the Act
On February 1 1961
Hardeva filed an application in the Court of the Commissioner
In this application he stated that the entire land in dis 452 pute was included in the permissible area selected bY him under section 5 B of the Act by submitting form E
He further stated that the Financial Commissioner had in Karan Singh vs Angraz Singh 1
held that selection under section 5 B1 had the same force as
reservation under section 5 of the Act and this disentitled
Surja from purchasing the land in dispute
He prayed that he may be allowed to raise the plea of selection under section 5 B 1
He stated that tiffs plea involved a question of jurisdiction and in the interest of justice he may be permitted to raise this plea as an additional ground of revision
The Commissioner allowed the ground to be taken but as Surja s counsel suspected the bona fides of the selection the Commissioner sent for the original file and he satisfied himself after examining the original form E and the affidavit in relation to form  E that
Hardeva had duly submitted the selection document to the Collector within time on June 19 1958
It appears that the Financial Commissioner had held in Dhanpat Raf vs State Punjab2 that the period of six months allowed by section 5 B for making selection would start from March 22 1958 the date when the Punjab Government Notification proscribing the form was issued
The Commissioner felt that the selected land could not be purchased under section 18 by the tenant
lie accordingly submitted the case to the Financial Commissioner with the recommendation
that the revision petition be accepted and that the orders of the Assistant Collector and the Collector be set aside
The Financial Commissioner dismissed the revision
He held that as Hardeva had not put forward the plea of selection before the Assistant Collector or the Collector he could not be allowed to do so at that stage
lie observed In other words the consideration that reservation of area under section 5 and selection of area under section 5 B are identical in their effect has no relevance in the present
cases for the reasons that it was never claimed except in revision that the area had been selected under section 5 B
If such a claim had been made and substantiated the position would have been different but since this  was not done the decision against the petitioner cannot be challenged
it is also clear that there is no question in these eases of authorities concerned having acted without jurisdiction or having exercised
it with illegality or material irregularity which alone could justify interference in revision
 Hardeva then filed a petition under articles 226 and 227
of the Constitution
The Court held that the Financial Commis 1 1960 39 Lahore Law Times 57 2 1961 Lahore Law 453 sioner should have accepted
the recommendation made by
the Commissioner and accordingly allowed the petition and declared that Surja was not entitled to purchase the land in dispute selected by the land owner under the provisions of section 5 B of the Act
The learned Single Judge was of the view that the disputed question related
to junsdiction and went to the root of the whole matter
It appears that there was some dispute before the learned Single Judge about the date of the selection because the learned Judge observed There is a slight dispute on the question whether the intimation of selection was given on 19th or  20th of June 1958
He however
preferred to accept the finding of the learned Commissioner on the point and gave the landowner the benefit of it
He further observed that the question could not have been raised before the Assistant Collector and the Collector because the prevailing view up till 1960 appears to have been that the selected area had
not been equated with the reserved area and it was because of this that Hardeva had not placed it before the Assistant Collector and the Collector although he had placed the point that the area was part of the reserved area
It seems to us that the High Court was right in holding that the question whether the land sought to be purchased by Surja was part of the reserved or selected area was a jurisdictional fact
Under section 18 of the Act a tenant is only entitled to purchase land which as not included in the reserved or selected area of the landowner
Under section 182 the Assistant Collector is only authorized to determine the value of the land after making such enquiries as he thinks fit
He is not authorized expressly to go into the question whether the land sought to be purchased is included in the reserved or selected area of the land owner or not
But obviously it must be the intention that he should go into these questions before embarking on determining the price
But by wrongly deciding that question he cannot finally confer on himself jurisdiction to deal with the matter
In exercise of the powers under section 24 of the Act read with section 84 of the Tenancy Act the Financial Commissioner had jurisdiction to go into the question whether the Assistant Collector or the Collector had rightly assumed jurisdiction
It was urged before us that the orders of the Assistant Collector and the Collector were final and could not be assailed on the ground that they had wrongly assumed jurisdiction
Reliance was placed on authorities
like Rai Brij Raj Krishna vs section K Shaw1 where 1  454 this Court referred to Queen vs Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax 1 and Colonial Bank of Australia vs Willan2 That was a case of a suit whereby the order of the Commissioner under the Bihar Buildings Lease Rent and Eviction Control Act 1947 section 11 was sought to be declared illegal ultra vires and without jurisdiction but we are concerned with the revisional powerof the Financial Commissioner which is the same as that of the High Court
As observed by Kapur J speaking for the Court in Chaube Jagdish Prasad vs Chaturvedi3 these cases have no application to the exercise of revisional power
He observed The appellant also relied on Rai BrijRai Krishna vs
SK Shaw and Bros4 where this Court quoted with approval the observations of Lord Esher in Queen vs Commissioner for pecial Purposes of the Income Tax1 and Colonial Bank of Australia vs Willana where Sir James Colville said Accordingly the authorities establish that an adjudication by a Judge having jurisdiction over the subject matter is if no defect appears on the face of it to be taken as conclusive of the facts stated therein and that the Court of Queen s Bench will not on certiorari quash such an adjudication on the ground that any such fact however essential has been erroneously found But these observations can have no application to the judgment of the Additional Civil Judge whose jurisdiction in the present case iS to be determined by the provisions of section 5 4 of the Act
And the power of the High Court to correct questions of jurisdiction is to be found within the four corners of section 115
H there is an error which falls within this section the High CoUrt will have the power to interfere not otherwise
The only question to be decided in the instant case is as to whether the High Court had correctly interfered under section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure with the order of the Civil Judge
As we have held above at the instance of the landlord the suit was only maintainable if it was based on the inadequacy of the reasonable annual rent and for that purpose the necessary jUrisdictional fact to be found was the date of the construction of the accommodation and if the court wrongly decided 1 2 3 1959 Supp 1 SCR 733 746
4  455 that fact and thereby conferred jurisdiction upon itself which it did not possess it exercised jurisdiction not vested in it and the matter fell within the
rule laid down by the Privy Council in Joy Chandlal Babu vs Kamalksha Chaudhury1  The High Court had the power to interfere and once it had the power it could determine whether the question of the date of construction was rightly or wrongly decided
The High Court held that the Civil Judge had wrongly decided that the conStruction was of a date after June 30 1946 and therfor fell within section 3 A Similarly in Jagannath Ramchandra Datar vs Dattaraya Balwant Hingmire2 this Court observed Therefore if it can be shown that the subordinate court without any evidence whatsoever held that the  transaction in question was not a sale but a mortgage and that the relationship between the parties was that of a debtor and a creditor and on that
footing proceeded to exercise its power under section 3 and 10 A of the Dekhan Agriculturists Relief Act the High Court would be entitled to interfere with such a decision under both the parts of section 115
It would then  be possible to say that the subordinate court had clutched at jurisdiction which it had not under the said section and it would also be possible to say that court had exercised its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity
 It seems to us that the Financial Commissioner did not appreciate the content of his powers of revision under section 24 read with section 84 of the Tenancy Act
It was obvious from the report of the Commissioner that if the finding arrived at by the Commissioner was accepted the Assistant Collector and the Collector had no jurisdiction in the matter
In our opinion the Financial Commissioner should have gone into the question whether the Commissioner s report was acceptable or not on merits
It is urged by the learned counsel for Surja that the High Court did not decide the question whether the selection had been properly made within time but it merely accepted the report of the Commissioner
He therefore still disputes the fact that the selection was made within time
He also says that it is not a genuine and valid selection
These points should be gone into by the Financial Commissioner
Under these circumstances we allow the appeal set aside the orders passed by the High Court 1 1949 LR 76 IA 131
2 Civil Appeal No 585 of 1964 judgment delivered on September 9 1966
456 and the Financial Commissioner and remit the case to the Financial
Commissioner to dispose of the revision filed before him in accordance with law
There will be no order as to Costs in this appeal  YP Appeal allowed


Summary:
The appellant a tenant of
the respondent la big land owner
applied
for purchase of theland cultivated by him under section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 1953 alleging that he had been in possession of the land for more than
six years and the land was outside the reserved area of the land oWner
The respondent alleged
that th land was reserved
The Assistant Collector held that the appellant was entitled
to purchase the land 
The respondent filed an appeal t the Collector
The Collector dismissed the appeal
The responder then filed a revision to the Commissioner
While the revision was pending the Financial Commissioner gave a decision in another matter that a selection by land owner under s2 5B1 for permissible area under the Act had the same force as reservationunder section 5 of the Act
There respondent thereupon filed an application stating that the entire land dispute was included in the permissible area selected by him under section 5 B and as this disentitled the tenant from purchasing the land prayed that he may be allowed to raise this plea which involved a question of jurisdiction
The Commissioner satisfied himself that the selection document was filed within time and felt that the land could not purchased and submitted the case to the Financial Commissioner with the recommendation that the
revision be accepted
The Financial Commissioner however dismissed the revision holding that as the respondent had not put the plea of selection before Assistant Collector or Collect he could not be allowed to do so at that stage
The respondent filed a petition in the High Court and the High Court allowed the petitioning that the Financial Commissioner should have accepted the recommendation made by the Commissioner
In appeal this Court HELD The Financial Commissioner should have gone into question whether Commissioner s report was acceptable or not on merits The question whether the land sought to be purchased by the appellant was part of the reserved or selected area was a jurisdictional f Under section 18 of the Act a tenant is only entitled to purchase land is not included in the reserved or selected area of the land ow Under section 182 the Assistant Collector is only authorized to determine the value of the land after making such enquiries as he thinks fit
is not authorized expressly to go into the question whether the sought to be purchased is included in the reserved or selected are the land owner or not
But he should go into these questions be embarking or determining the price and by wrongly deciding
449 tion he cannot finally confer on himself jurisdiction to deal with the matter
The revisional power of the Financial Commissioner under section 24 of the Act read with section 84 of the Tenancy Act being the same as that of the High Court in exercise of that power the Financial Commissioner had jurisdiction to go into the question whether the Assistant Collector or the Collector had rightly assumed jurisdiction
453 E G As the question whether the selection by the land owner was made in time and whether it was genuine and valid had to be decided the matter must be remanded to the Financial Commissioner for decision on these points
Chaube Jagdish Prasad vs Chaturvedi 1959 Supp 1 SCR 733 746 and Jagannath Ramchandra Datar vs Dattaraya Balwant Hingmire CA No 585 of 1964 dated 9 9 1966 followed
Rai Brij Raj Krishna vs
SK Shaw   Queen vs Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income tax and Colonial Bank of Australia vs Willan LR  held inapplicable