Judgment

MATHEW, J. :- The appellants filed a writ petition before the High Court of Punjab for the issue of an appropriate writ or order quashing a notice dated June 21, 1961, issued under S. 4 (1) of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1959, hereinafter called the Act , directing the 2nd appellant to show cause why an order of eviction should not be passed against him in respect of the premises in question.

2. The appellant s case was as follows. On the demise of the late Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, his eldest son, Maharaja Yadavindra Singh succeeded to the gaddi of the erstwhile State of Patiala which subsequently merged with the State of Punjab. Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, along with his sons including the appellants, constituted a joint Hindu family. The appellants along with the other sons of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh had an interest, by virtue of their being coparceners, in all the properties of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. The appellants, along with their brothers, were in occupation of a property known as "Colonel Mistry s House", Moti Bagh Palance, Patiala, in their own right as the sons of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. It was an ancestral property in