CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. DATE OF DECISION : November 2 , 2010. Parties Name Ram Ditta ...PETITIONER VERSUS The State of Haryana and others ...RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH PRESENT: Mr. Sanjay Majithia, Senior Advocate, with Mr. Shailender Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Kamal Sehgal, Addl. A.G., Haryana, for the respondents. JASBIR SINGH, J. (oral) JUDGMENT: Ram Ditta, who had migrated from Pakistan to this part of the country, has filed this petition with a prayer to quash order dated March 14, 1986, (Annexure P-1), vide which property rights conferred upon him way back in the year 1962, from an area measuring 3.9 standard Acres of land were cancelled. Further challenge has been laid to an order dated June 9, 1987 (P-2) dismissing his revision petition, filed under Section 33 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954 (in short the Act). Counsel for the parties heard. It is apparent from the records that against a verified claim, the petitioner was allotted rural agricultural land to the extent of 18 Standard CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -2- Acres and 12 ½ units in village Salimpur and Himatpura in State of Haryana. The said land was allotted to him in lieu of the land left by him in Pakistan at the time of partition. Kind of the soil/ land at the time of allotment was shown as under: “ Nehru Tal K- M K – M Salimpur 26 – 6 67- 4 Himatpura 64- 17 230-19” Possession of the land was immediately handed over to the petitioner and he started cultivating the same. There was no dispute at all so far as vesting of ownership rights in him are concerned. All of a sudden in the year 1981, i.e., after about 19 years of the allotment, a reference was made by Settlement Officer – cum Managing Officer for cancelling proprietary rights of the petitioner to the extent of 3 Standard Acres and 9 Units of the land, situated in village Himatpura on the ground that in the year 1962, land was allotted by taking its value at 10 Anas per Acre, whereas it should have been assessed at 15 Anas per Acre. To say so, reliance was placed upon a notification dated August 4, 1962, vide which the land falling in that village was declared as perennial in nature (yielding two crops a year). The reference was accepted vide the impugned order dated March 14, 1986,(P-1) and thereafter revision petition, filed by the petitioner, was dismissed vide order dated June 9, 1987(P-2). It is primary contention of counsel for the petitioner that it was not open to the State authorities to unsettle the settled matters. At the time of allotment, no misrepresentation was made by the petitioner for getting the land allotted to him. The land was allotted by the authorities taking note of the revenue record existing at that time. Allotment cannot be cancelled after CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -3- a period of 19 years. To buttress his contention, counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance upon ratio of the judgment of this Court in Karam Chand Thakur Dass v. Union of India and another, AIR 1967 Punjab and Haryana 85, and also Sucha Singh and others v. Gurdial Singh and others, 1977 P.L.J. 6. To the contrary, Shri Sehgal argued that powers under Section 24 of the Act can be exercised at any point of time. In the present case, land was allotted to the petitioner by taking its kind as non-perennial in nature. When this mistake came to the notice of the authorities, they immediately objected to the allotment made in favour of the petitioner and cancelled it. Before proceeding further, it is necessary to note down the provisions of Section 24 of the Act, which read thus: “24. Power of revision of the Chief Settlement Commissioner.-(1) The Chief Settlement Commissioner may at any time call for the record of any proceeding under this Act in which a Settlement Officer, an Assistant Settlement Officer, an Assistant Settlement Commissioner, an Additional Settlement Commissioner, a Settlement Commissioner, a managing officer or a managing corporation has passed an order for the purpose of satisfying himself as to the legality or propriety of any such order and may pass such order in relation thereto as he thinks fit. (2)Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power under sub-section (1), if the Chief Settlement Commissioner CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -4- is satisfied that any order for payment of compensation to a displaced person or any lease or allotment granted to such a person has been obtained by him by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of any material facts, then, notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, the Chief Settlement Commissioner may pass an order directing that no compensation shall be paid to such a person or reducing the amount of compensation to be paid to him, or as the case may be, cancelling the lease or allotment granted to him; and if it is found that a displaced person has been paid compensation which is not payable to him, or which is in excess of the amount payable to him, such amount or excess, as the case may be, may, on a certificate issued by the Chief Settlement Commissioner, be recovered in the same manner as an arrear of land revenue. (3)No order which prejudicially affects any person shall be passed under this section without giving him a reasonable opportunity of being heard. (4)Any person aggrieved by any order made under sub-section (2), may, within thirty days of the date of the order, make an application for the revision of the order in such form and manner as may be prescribed to the Central Government and the Central Government may pass such order thereon as it thinks fit.” A reading of the above said provisions indicates that the Chief CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -5- Settlement Commissioner “at any time” may call for the records of the proceedings taken under this Act to satisfy regarding legality or validity of the order passed. Now it is to be seen whether above said power can be exercised at any point of time or there is some limitation to exercise the above said jurisdiction. The words “at any time” came up for consideration before a Division Bench of this Court in Karam Chand Thakar Dass' case (supra). After taking note of the provisions of Section 24 of the Act, it was observed as under: “36. Coming to the scope, objects and scheme of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, it is obvious that the purpose of that legislation was to provide for the payment of compensation, etc. to the displaced persons and for matters connected therewith. According to the scheme of the Act acquired evacuee property in the compensation pool has to be disposed of either by transfer to certain class of displaced persons or by sale. A transferee of such property from the Central Government becomes its absolute owner. It could not possibly be intended by the Parliament that the title of such an owner of immovable property should be constantly in jeopardy for an indefinite time particularly when no fault of any kind is ascribed to him in obtaining the property in question. It is no doubt true that power is vested in the Chief Settlement Commissioner by S. 24(1) of the Act to set aside or vary any order passed by any of the authorities named in that sub section at any time if the Chief Settlement Commissioner is not satisfied about the legality or propriety of such order. What has CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -6- been changed in the instant case is the value of the house in dispute which had been fixed by the first committee. It is neither shown nor stated by anyone that the original value had been fixed by any of the authorities named in S. 24(1) of the Act. The order of the Managing Officer transferring the house in dispute to the petitioner was a mere consequential order based on the original valuation. Admittedly no illegality or impropriety has been found in the order of the Managing Officer transferring the property to the petitioner. It is the valuation on which the order was based which has been interfered with. That could not be done under S. 24(1) . Nor has the valuation been changed by the Chief Settlement Commissioner. No other authority can interfere under the above said provision of law. Coming back, however, to the question of the meaning of the expression “at any time” in S. 24(1) of the Act, I am firmly of the view that the phrase does not authorise the Chief Settlement Commissioner to interfere with a completed deal after any length of time implying absolute indefiniteness . “At any time” in this section certain means: (i)at any time so long as the property respect of which the order is sought to be passed continues to be in the compensation pool; (ii)at any time thereafter if the person sought to be affected by the revised order is found to have been a party to the original order which would not have been the same if the party in CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -7- question had not acted in a certain way; and (iii)at any time in other suitable cases provided it is within a reasonable time which would depend on the peculiar facts and circumstances of each case. 37.I am further of the view that if the Chief Settlement Commissioner exercises his jurisdiction under S. 24(1) of the Act after a long time or after undue delay he must deal in his order with the question of delay so as to make it obvious that the delay is not undue and could not be avoided in the circumstances of the case and also to show that it is necessary in the interest of justice that interference should be made in the previous order even after lapse of so much time. Any order under S. 24(1) of the Act passed after undue delay or after the lapse of several years of the passing of the property (in respect of which the order is passed) out of the compensation pool may possibly be liable to be struck down on the ground that it is opposed to the rule of law to the effect that a quasi-judicial orders should not be lightly interfered with after they have once achieved finality merely because the Chief Settlement Commissioner thinks that the original order was not as good as it should have been. The fact that according to the opinion of a particular officer the value of certain property was fixed too low or too high before the property was transferred would not normally be a matter to be interfered with long after the absolute transfer of the property under S. 24(1) of the Act because mere wrong CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -8- valuation not based on any fraud or misrepresentation of the party benefited by the error is not intended to amount to illegality or impropriety within the meaning ascribed to those terms in that section.” Perusal of the order under challenge clearly indicates that to overcome delay of 19 years, nothing was mentioned by the Managing Officer. The above said view was reiterated by a Division Bench of this Court in Sucha Singh's case (supra). After taking note of the provisions of the Act, it was observed as under: “5. Considerable argument was advanced on the question of laches by the learned counsel for the heirs of Makhan Singh. He argued that there was no limitation for invoking the revisional jurisdiction of the Chief Settlement Commissioner and, therefore, it could not be said that there were laches on the part of the heirs of Makhan Singh. Assuming that no period of limitation is prescribed for invoking the revisional jurisdiction of the Chief Settlement Commissioner, it does not follow that persons can lie low for any length of time and invoke the revisional powers of the Chief Settlement Commissioner after the lapse of several years. In the present case, Makhan Singh died on 23rd November, 1964. The appellate authority rejected the appeal on 21st June, 1966. Yet, till August, 1968, Makhan Singh's heirs did not take steps to canvass the order of the appellate authority. An ex-attorney of Makhan Singh purposed to file a revision petition on 30th July, 1966. On the face of it CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -9- he was incompetent to do so since he filed it on behalf of a dead person. He must have filed it without even being instructed to file the revision since it is nobody's case that the heirs of Makhan Singh instructed him to file a revision petition on behalf of their dead father. The heirs of Makhan Singh were, therefore, certainly guilty of laches.” No judgment to the contrary has been shown to this Court at the time of arguments. Allotment in favour of the petitioner was confirmed on November 30, 1962. As per admitted position, possession of the land in dispute was handed over to the petitioner 12 days prior to the issuance of notification dated August 4, 1962 declaring the land in dispute as perennial in nature. It is nobody's case that in getting the allotment, the petitioner had played any fraud or made any misrepresentation. It was for the authorities to take note of the notification issued on August 4, 1962. Possession has already been delivered to the petitioner before issuance of the above said notification. He continued as such for a long period of 19 years when reference was made by the Settlement Officer -cum- Managing Officer. This Court is of the opinion that in view of the ratio of the judgments of this Court in Karam Chand Thakar Dass' case (supra) and Sucha Singh's case (supra), it was not now open to the authorities to unsettle the settled matters after a long period of two decades. Otherwise also, the petitioner is a person, who had migrated from Pakistan. The authorities were required to show sympathy to him. Not only as above, land was allotted to the petitioner out of the compensation pool being managed by the Central Government under the provisions of the Act. The State of CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 4928 OF 1987 -10- Haryana was not in existence at that time. It is also doubtful as to whether notification issued by the State authorities on August 4, 1962, was applicable to the facts of this case or not. No finding is given at this stage on this issue because even without deciding that issue, this petition deserves to succeed. In view of facts, mentioned above, this writ petition is allowed, impugned orders dated March 14, 1986 and June 9, 1987, copies Annexures P-1 and P-2 respectively, are set aside and the allotment of land in favour of the petitioner is restored. ( Jasbir Singh ) Judge November 2, 2010. DKC