Judgment

SARKARIA, J.:- This appeal on certificate is directed against a Full Bench judgment of the High Court at Chandigarh, rendered on November 22, 1968 in Letters Patent Appeal No. 47 of 1967.* It arises out of these facts:

*Reported in AIR 1968 Punj 162.

2. Bishan Das was a displaced person from West Pakistan, where he owned a considerable area of agricultural land. He died on April 11, 1948, after his migration to India, leaving behind his five sons, who are the appellants before us.

3. After Bishan Dass death, the Rehabilitation Department allotted 124 standard acres and 1/4 unit of evacuee land in his (Bishan Das) names on August 26, 1949. Permanent rights in regard to this allotted land were conferred by the Managing Officer on behalf of the President of India under the provisions of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, in the names of the sons of Bishan Das on January 2, 1956. Prior to it, a mutation was allowed by the Rehabilitation Authorities on February 17, 1953 in favour of the appellants, herein, showing each of them entitled to 24 standard acres and 13 units of land.

4. Ram Dhan, respondent 2, was in possession of the land as a tenant. The appellants applied under Section 9 (1) (i) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (hereinafter called the Act) for his ejectment on the ground that each of them is a small land-owner, as defined in Section 2(2) of the Act; and that they require the land for self-cultivation.

5. The Assistant Collector, Hissar, rejected their application. Their appeal was dismissed by the Collector, on January 4, 1965. Their Revision was rejected by the Commissioner of Ambala Division on October 26, 1965. Their further Revision to the Financial Commissioner, also, met the same fate on May 17, 1966.

6. The appellants then moved the High Court by a writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, alleging that the aforesaid orders of the Assistant Collector, Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner, were illegal, without jurisdiction and ultra vires the provisions of the Act and the rules made thereunder. Their contention was that the land had been allotted to them in lieu of the land abandoned by their father, Bishan Das, in Pakistan, and consequently, permissible area of each of them is to be computed under Proviso (ii) to Section 2 (3) of the Act, and so computed, the holding of each of the five would be well below the permissible limit of 30 standard acres prescribed thereunder. It was further contended that since the allotment was made in standard acres, and not in ordinary acres, the permissible area of each of the appellants would be 30 standard acres, notwithstanding the fact that on conversion into ordinary acres, it exceeds 60 ordinary acres. On these grounds, the appellants claimed that each of them is a small land-owner and as such, entitled to move for eviction of the tenant under Section 9 (1) (i) of the Act.

7. The learned single Judge of the High Court dismissed the writ petition.

8. Munshi Ram and his four brothers filed Letters Patent Appeal, which was eventually heard by a Full Bench. The Bench held that since the appellants were not displaced persons within the meaning of the East Punjab Displaced Persons (Land Resettlement) Act, 1949, the concession of an enhanced permissible area under Proviso (ii) to sub-section (3) of Section 2 of the Act was not available to them, and their permissible area would be 60 ordinary acres, each; that since the holding of each of the appellants exceeds that limit, they are not small land-owners, and as such, were not competent to seek ejectment of the tenant. With this reasoning, the Full Bench dismissed the appeal.

9. Before considering the contentions canvassed, let us have a look at the definition of permissible area in Section 2 (3) of the Act. This definition reads as under:

" Permissible area in relation to a land-owner or a tenant, means thirty standard acres and where such thirty standard acres o