CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009 :{ 1 }: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: January 09, 2009 Ruldu Singh .....Petitioner VERSUS Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Punjab and others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. Jasmail Singh Brar, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. Petitioner's father was a Lambardar, who died on 31.8.1995. Proceedings were accordingly initiated for appointment of new Lambardar. Collector, Bhatinda, appointed respondent No.4 as Lambardar on 6.5.1997. Commissioner, however, accepted the appeal and remanded the case back for re-consideration to the Collector, who again appointed respondent No.4 as Lambardar on 24.3.1998. This order was again set-aside and the case remanded back to Collector and this time, he appointed the petitioner as Lambardar on 4.12.2002. When respondent No.4 filed appeal against CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009 :{ 2 }: this order before the Commissioner, he accepted the same and appointed respondent No.4 as Lambardar on 15.10.2003. The revision against the said order was dismissed by Financial Commissioner on 14.8.2008 and now the petitioner has filed the present writ petition to impugn the said orders, appointing respondent No.4 as Lambardar. Learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to detailed order Annexure P-1 and has made reference to the observation made by the Commissioner, which has been discussed in detail by the Collector to point out that the petitioner is more meritorious. However, the counsel is not giving due consideration to the fact that the Collector, while exercising his independent discretion, had found respondent No.4 to be more meritorious and had appointed him as Lambardar on two occasions, when the Commissioner had interfered with the said order. Third time, the Collector apparently has not exercised his independent mind to assess the merit of the respective candidates and basically was influenced by the observation made by the Commissioner while appointing the petitioner as Lambardar. This can be made out from order Annexure P-1, where reference is extensively made to the observation of the Commissioner. It can, thus, be said that the order passed by the Collector is either not on the basis of an independent assessment of merit or is substantially influenced by the observation made by the Commissioner. Such order can not be taken to be free from influence/perversity and as such, would not call for preference as generally would be the legal position. The Commissioner has validly considered the fact that the petitioner could not have been given preference or an added value CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009 :{ 3 }: for being a sarbrah Lambardar. Respondent was found to be more educated and having more land and was rightly appointed. Financial Commissioner also found the respondent to be more meritorious while declining to interfere in the order passed by the Commissioner. This is not a case where choice of Collector can be said to be independent or uninfluenced and hence, can not be given preference or precedent in any manner. I am, thus, not inclined to interfere in the impugned order in exercise of writ jurisdiction. Dismissed. January 09, 2009 ( RANJIT SINGH ) khurmi JUDGE