Case: Md. Sharfuddin Vs. R. P. Singh And Others

2. The facts relevant to the question raised in this appeal may be briefly stated. On information supplied by one Qurban Ahmad, the Assistant Custodian, Giridih, issued a notice under S. 7(1) of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 (Act XXXI of 1950) (hereinafter called the Act), to the appellant to show cause why he should not declare holdings Nos. 326, 774 and 654 in his possession as evacuee properties. The Assistant Custodian, after making the necessary inquiry, held that the said holdings were evacuee properties. The appellant filed a revision petition under Section 26 of the Act against the said order to the Deputy Custodian, Hazaribagh, who set aside the order of the Assistant Custodian and remanded the matter to him for disposal in accordance with law. On April 26, 1954, the Assistant Custodian, Giridhi on a consideration of the evidence placed before him, held that the said properties were not evacuee properties, and on that finding he released them. Thereafter, the Custodian, acting under S 26(1) of the Act, called for the records of the case and, after hearing the appellant, by his order dated January 27, 1955, dropped the proceedings. On February 22, 1955, the Assistant Custodian, Headquarters, Patna, filed an appeal before the Custodian, under S. 24(1)(a) of the Act, against the order of the Assistant Custodian, Girdih, dated April 26, 1954, releasing the holdings of the appellant. On August 4, 1955, the Custodian set aside the order of the Assistant custodian, Giridih, and declared the shares of the brothers of the appellant in the holdings to be evacuee properties and referred the matter to the appropriate authority for the separation of their interest. Thereafter, the appellant filed an application to the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution to quash the said order, but that was dismissed. Hence the appeal.

Court's reasoning:
Though learned counsel for the appellant raised all the four contentions before us, he seriously pressed only the first twoour view this argument is not consistent with the scheme of the Act. Though for the purpose of convenience of management or judicial determination of disputes the Act provides different categories of Custodians, all of them fall within the definition of "Custodian" in the Act. The Act further provides a hierarchy of tribunals under the superintendence and control of the Custodian-General. It would be anomalous were it to be held that a Custodian could prefer an appeal against the order of a Custodian. The Act does not contemplate one officer preferring appeals against the orders of another officer. If an Assistant Custodian or a Custodian went wrong in the matter of declaring a property to be an evacuee property the Act provides that the Custodian or the Custodian-General, as the case may be before 1956, and the Custodian-General thereafter, may set right the wrong. In the premises the words "any person aggrieved" in S. 24 of the Act can only mean a person whose properties have been declared to be evacuee properties by the Custodian, or a person who moved the Custodian to get the properties so declared or any other such aggrieved person. The words "any person aggrieved" in the context of the Act cannot include any Custodian as defined in thethat case, on information supplied by one Tek Chand Dolwani to the Additional Custodian of Evacuee Property, the latter started proceedings under the Bombay Evacuees (Administration of Property) Act, 1949, against one Aboobaker. The Additional Custodian, after recording the statement of Aboobaker and examining the evidence produced by Tek Chand Dolwani, held that the said Aboobaker was not an evacuee. Tek Chand Dolwani filed an appeal against the said order to the Custodian-General of India. One of questions raised was whether the said Tek Chand Dolwani was a person aggrieved by the order of the Additional custodian within the meaning of S. 24 of the Central Ordinance XXVII of 1949 and was entitled to appeal against the said order. This Court held that the said person was a person aggrieved within the meaning of the said section. It was provided in R. 5(5) of the rules made under the Ordinance that any person or persons claiming to be interested in the inquiry or in the property being declared as evacuee property, might file a written statement in reply to the written statement filed by the persons interested in the property claiming that the property should not be declared as an evacuee property; and that the Custodian should proceed to hear the evidence, if any, which the party appearing to show cause might produce and also the evidence which the party claiming to be interested as mentioned above might adduce. The rule, therefore, authorized the Additional Custodian to adjudicate between the person moving the Custodian to declare a property as evacuee property and the person denying that fact. In that context, this Court held that the person moving the Custodian was a person aggrieved within the meaning of S. 24. This decision or the decisions relied upon by this Court in the aforesaid case in coming to the said conclusion are not relevant to the present enquiry. Where a statute or rules framed thereunder provide for a dispute between two parties to be decided by a tribunal, it is implicit in that provision that the defeated party is one aggrieved by that decision. But the same cannot be said of a Custodian and the party in whose favour he gave a decision; nor can another subordinate officer of the Custodian, who made the decision and who has no statutory duty to appear before the Custodian to put forward the case of the department or lead evidence in support thereof, be equated to a party in a lis. We, therefore, hold, having regard to the scheme of the Act, that the Assistant custodian Headquarters, Patna, is not a person aggrieved within the meaning of S. 24 of the Act. The appeal to the Custodian, therefore, was not competent.8. In this view, the second question does not fall to be considered.