Letters Patent Appeal No. 209 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Letters Patent Appeal No. 209 of 2011(O&M) Date of decision:20th July, 2011 Manjeet Singh and others .......Appellants Versus Gram Panchayat and otehs ........Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: Mr. Akshay Bhan, Advocate for the appellants. Mr. Parveen Kumar Garg, Advocate for respondent No. 1. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No Jasbir Singh, J.(Oral) Civil Misc. No. 561 of 2011 Prayer in this application is to implead the legal representatives of the appellant Sh. Dalip Singh son of Nikka Singh petitioner in CWP No. 5890 of 2005 (deceased) as appellants in the present appeal. Civil Misc. application is allowed subject to all just exceptions. The applicants, as per their detail mentioned in paragraph No. 2 of the application, are ordered to be impleaded as appellant Nos. 1 to 3 only for the purpose of this appeal. Letters Patent Appeal No. 209 of 2011 2 Main case This appeal has been filed against an order dated 8.10.2010 passed by the learned Single Judge, dismissing the CWP No. 5890 of 2005, filed by the petitioner. As per facts on record, by filing that writ petition the appellants herein had challenged an order passed by the Commissioner on 17.09.2004, vide which ejectment of the appellant, from the land in dispute, was ordered. It is admitted on record, that the Gram Panchayat is the owner of the land in dispute, which was given on lease for 10 years to the appellant in the year 1977. On expiry of the lease period, there is nothing on record to show that the appellants had made any application to the Gram Panchayat to extend the lease period. There is also no evidence to show that any lease amount was paid to the Gram Panchayat after the year 1987. Under the circumstances, the Gram Panchayat filed an application against the appellants under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Land Act 1964 for their ejectment, before the Collector. Vide order dated 4.10.1999 (P-3), the Collector dismissed application of the Gram Panchayat and passed an order that the land in question deemed to have been given to the appellant on rent at the rate of ` 14000/- per acre per annum with a further stipulation that after every year there will be an increase of 10% in the lease amount. Gram Panchayat went in appeal which was allowed by the Letters Patent Appeal No. 209 of 2011 3 Commissioner vide order dated 18.02.2005. Relevant portion of the order reads thus:- “After hearing both parties and the record file one thing is clear that disputed land was taken at chakota in 01.11.77 for 10 years and the respondent never delivered the possession of the land to Gram Panchayat after expiry of period. Therefore, he is in illegal possession of the land as there is no further agreement between the parties. It is definite that Gram Panchayat is owner of the land. As per Rule 6 of Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulations) Rules 1964 the Gram Panchayat is compentent to give its land at lease being owner as it is autonomous and local body as per section 2 (t) and 2 (a) of the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act 1994, Collector have no right under Section 7 of the act to fix rent of the property. Hence appeal is allowed and respondent is ordered to evict the land. The Gram Panchayat can file for previous damages Under Rule 20(a) of 1964 rules. The respondent may vacate the land within one month from this order. After which Gram Panchayat is authorized to proceed as per law.” The above order was challenged by the appellants by filing Civil Writ Petition No. 5890 of 2005 which was dismissed vide the impugned order. Learned Single Judge has rightly come to the conclusion that on expiry of the lease period the appellants were Letters Patent Appeal No. 209 of 2011 4 bound to vacate the land except in case their lease period would have been extended by the Gram Panchayat. It was not done. The appellants continued to stick to the land for a period of more than 10 years, then the Gram Panchayat rightly filed an application for ejectment. The Collector was not justified in ordering the Gram Panchayat to further lease out the land. Being contrary to the law, the order was rightly reversed by the Commissioner. We feel that order passed by the learned Single Judge is justified and accordingly, the appeal is dismissed. [JASBIR SINGH] JUDGE [AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH] JUDGE 20th July, 2011 Shivani Kaushik