C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 Date of Decision. .10.2011 Ranjit Singh and another (through LRs) .....Petitioners Versus The Joint Secretary (Rehabilitation)-cum-Settlement Commissioner, Haryana, Chandigarh and others .....Respondents Present: Mr. Arun Bansal, Advocate for the petitioners. Mr. O.P. Sharma, Addl. Advocate General Haryana for respondent Nos.1 and 2. None for respondent Nos.3 to 5. CORAM:HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? No -.- K. KANNAN J. 1. The writ petition is at the instance of three persons Ranjit Singh, Kehar Singh and Mathura Dass, each one of them having come by purchases of different parcels of land offered for sale by the State in public auction on 16.04.1969. The petitioners No.1 and 2 namely Ranjit Singh and Kehar Singh had purchased the property for Rs.10,000/- while the 3rd petitioner Mathura Dass had purchased his property for Rs.9300/-. Against the auction sales in favour of the petitioners, it appears that one Babu Singh and Gurnam Kaur filed a C.W.P. No.147 of 1969 before this Court and the petitioners herein had been arrayed as respondent Nos.4, 5 and 6 respectively. The writ petition was ordered on 6.8.1991 when C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -2- this Court had found that the auction sale in favour of Babu Singh was liable to be set aside since he was an owner of 5 standard acres and was ineligible for participating in the bids. The sale in favour of Gurnam Kaur however was upheld. Against the said judgment, it appears that the petitioners had filed LPA and it is stated in the petition that the LPA is still pending at the time of filing of petition. I have no information about the nature of orders that could have been passed subsequently. The sales in favour of petitioners appears to have been challenged at the instance of one Hazara Singh, who is arrayed as 3rd respondent before this Court. On the objection taken by Hazara Singh, it appears that the sale was also set aside originally by the Settlement Officer. The ground of objection taken against the petitioners, inter alia, was that the earnest money had not been paid within the time prescribed in the auction notices. The decision of the Settlement Officer, who is arrayed as 2nd respondent, appears to have been challenged before the Joint Secretary, Rehabilitation, who was arrayed as 1st respondent. The 1st respondent affirmed the decision through an order dated 05.12.1983. It is this order, which is in challenge before this Court. 2. The basis of the order passed by the 1st respondent is the acceptance of the contention of Hazara Singh that no proper proclamation had been made and that the sale had been vitiated by several infirmities. The authority held that the entire auction brought through file No.1875/V and 1876/V were not available for confirmation and that it rendered ineffective the sale. It is not very clear from the impugned order as to how those files were relevant and why those files were not available. He had found that the entire earnest money had not C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -3- been deposited at the time of fall of hammer and the amounts were deposited belatedly. If there was a condition in the sale that the earnest money must be deposited at the time of fall of hammer and if the same was not done, it was only legitimate under normal circumstances that the sale could not have been upheld. 3. The petitioner's challenge in the writ petition to the impugned order is that the action for setting aside the sale was at the instance of Hazara Singh, whose application itself had been barred by time. The sales had been held on 16.04.1969 but the objections of Hazara Singh had come for the first time only on 07.06.1969. There was no proof of any substantial injury or proof of irregularity or fraud in the conduct of sale. As regards the failure to deposit the entire earnest money, the petitioners would plead that the part of the earnest money had been deposited on the same day when the auction was held and the balance of amount was paid on the next day under the orders of the Officer, who conducted the sale. The petitioners would contend that after the entire amount as determined in the auction had been paid, there was no justification for setting aside the same. 4. The auction was held in the year 1969 and it is not denied that the entire amount of consideration as stipulated has been deposited by the petitioners. This Court has also passed an interim order protecting the possession at one stage when the matter was before the Court for arguments on 17.09.2008. It was pointed out on behalf of the State that the market value of the property had increased and that further there was a writ petition in C.W.P. No.2272 of 2003, which had passed a restraint order on 11.02.2003 preventing the sale of land to C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -4- unauthorized occupants in pursuant to the policy, which had been taken earlier for sale of the property under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954. This Court at that time passed an order adjourning the case sine die for conclusion of the case in C.W.P. No.2272 of 2003. 5. The writ petition in Dalmer Singh Vs. The State of Haryana and others in C.W.P. No.2272 of 2003 has been disposed of on 22.11.2010. The said decision examines the litigative history as regards the policy of the State for sale of the property to unauthorized occupants of rural evacuee land since Kharif 1975 or earlier. The Court held that the policy of the Government to sell the package deal properties that had been transferred to the State Government with reference to properties that had been left abandoned at the time of partition when several Muslims had migrated to the place which is now in Pakistan could not be justified at all. If it is allowed to stand, it would amount to giving a State largesse and benefit to those persons, who are the law breakers and who had entered the property of the State forcibly without any justification. The Court also observed that when the State had formulated the policy to legitimatize the possession of unauthorized occupants, it was not as if the property was allowed to be retained by them free of costs but it was decided that market price of the property would be collected after determination of such price by a high level price recommendation committee. The judgment considers the issues from the perspective of classes of unauthorized occupants in three stages namely (i), all persons, who came into possession from Kharif 1947; (ii), persons, who came into possession after Kharif 1947 C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -5- and continuing in possession till Kharif 1985 and (iii) persons, who had occupied the land after Kharif 1985 and cultivating possession from Kharif then on. The Court was essentially considering the formulation of a policy made on 01.04.2003 and upheld the same. Referring to the policy formulated in the year 1963, the Court observed that there were about 9500 rural evacuee agricultural lands, 750 acres of urban evacuee agricultural land, 2600 rural evacuee houses/sites and 1300 urban evacuee houses/sites. The Court had directed that in cases where the sales had been effected already, the State was not required to take action for eviction under Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act. Responding to the contention of the State that in many cases decisions had been taken in terms of the policy, the Bench observed in the closing that in respect of matters where final decision had been taken, the full amount of market price should be realized and no concession be given to them. Their allotment should be kept intact. 6. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would contend, therefore, that since the sale has come about in the year 1967 itself, the allotment should be affirmed and the petitioners shall not be deprived of the property by the only fact that the earnest money had been paid one day after the conclusion of the sale. I have noticed from file that this Court had earlier passed an order on 13.05.1997 allowing the three petitioners to retain the property in possession when they had moved an application in C.M. No.6791 of 2007 for protection of their possession. In this case, all the petitioners have died and legal representatives have been impleaded. It is nobody's case that the price of property at the time of sale was not appropriate. It shall be too C.W.P. No.3941 of 1985 -6- harsh to punish the petitioners to deprive them of their entitlement to the property by the only fact that there was a delay in paying the earnest money when the full sale consideration had been paid subsequently. The authority has not even considered the issue of as to how the objection for setting aside the sales were maintainable at the instance of person, who had filed the application for setting aside the sales beyond the period of limitation. It will be unjust to deny the petitioners the benefit of sale, which had been taken in the year 1967 especially when the sale considerations had been made and the property had also been delivered possession to the respective purchasers. 7. I set aside the impugned orders and allow the writ petitions. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE October , 2011 Pankaj*