IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.15258 of 2011 Date of Decision: August 19, 2011 Nazar Singh ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab & others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Mr.Shikha Sharma, Advocate, for Mr.Vikas Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner has impugned the orders passed by the Collector, Commissioner and Financial Commissioner, whereby they have appointed respondent No.5 Raghbir Singh as Lambardar. The petitioner claims better merit on the ground that he is 10th class pass, owned 11-1/2 Bighas of land and that he was a member of Sugar Mill and Co-operative Society. On the other hand, the counsel contends that there were criminal cases against respondent No.5 for having certified a wrong pedigree-table and so he did not deserve to be appointed as a Lambardar. His educational qualification is 5th class pass for which there was no record available. No record of criminal background of respondent No.5 was ever produced before the Collector. Respondent No.5 was having 16- 1/2 Bighas of land. He is 44 years of age. Before the Collector, it was pointed out that petitioner Nazar Singh was involved in number of criminal cases. Case of embezzlement of an amount of Civil Writ Petition No.15258 of 2011 :2: `3,11,270/- from the Gram Panchayat funds was pending against him. As per the counsel, the petitioner was acquitted of criminal cases registered against him and he had deposited an amount of `3,11,270/- with the Government. The allegations, thus, pressed against the petitioner before the Collector were not without any basis. Mere acquittal does not mean that the petitioner was not facing criminal charges or had not faced criminal charges. Comparing the merit of the candidates, the Collector exercised his choice to appointment respondent No.5 finding him to be more meritorious as compared to the petitioner. The choice exercised by the Collector does not suffer from any infirmity, which would call for interference in exercise of writ jurisdiction. It has consistently been held that as a general rule, choice of Collector is final and except where the order discloses the lack of jurisdiction or an error of fact, so as to render his order arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable and no interference would be called for otherwise. See Ujagar Singh Versus State of Punjab, 2008(3) RCR (Civil) 28 and Gurdial Singh Versus Iqbal Singh, 2008(4) RCR (Civil) 283. Accordingly, the choice of the Collector is to be treated as final. No submission is made to show lack of jurisdiction or error of fact or arbitrariness, which would call for interference in the choice exercised by the Collector. The choice exercised by the Collector was upheld by the Commissioner as well as the Financial Commissioner. No case for interference is made out. Dismissed. August 19, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE