The Central Government had the power to make rules circumscribing the exercise of Custodians powers under Section 12 of the Act, and that the restriction imposed by Rule 14(6) was reasonable.

Falshaw, J.

1. Briefly the facts giving rise to this reference to the Full Bench are that there was a three-cornered contest regarding the allotment of evacuee lands in a village called Ratauli in the Ambala District between N. R. Batra, a group consisting of Prem Singh and Narain Singh, sons of Sunder Dass, and Raj Kaur, wife of Narain Singh, and Hargobind and Jai Kishan, sons of Dewan Chand Suri. By an order dated 17-7-1952 the Custodian of Evacuce Property, Punjab, ordered that N. R. Batra was not entitled to be accommodated in village Ratauli at the expense of either of the other parties.

2. Against this order N. R. Batra filed a revision petition under Section 27 of the Act before the Custodian-General on 9-9-1952, i.e., within the ordinary period of limitation for filing such petitions. This revision petition was decided by Mr. Chhakan Lal, Deputy Custodian-General, by his order dated 18-8-1953, which had the effect of cancelling the allotment of Prem Singh, etc., in Ratauli to the extent of 112 standard acres 7 units, i.e., the extent necessary to accommodate N. R. Batra in that village. The other respondents in the revision petition, Hargobind and Jai Kishan, were held to be entitled to remain in enjoyment of the land allotted to them.

3. This order ot the Deputy Custodian-General was challenged by Prem Singh, etc., in a petition filed in this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution (Civil Writ No. 269 of 1933) in which inter alia the point was raised that the order of the Deputy Custodian-General was illegal in view of the amendment introduced in July 1952 in Rule 14 of the Rules framed by the Central Govt. under Section 56, Administration of Evacuee Properly Act.

4. The historical background leading up to this was as follows. By Sub-Section (1) of Section 12 of the Act the Custodian was given apparently unlimited powers to cancel allotments. Sub-Section (1) as it read before it was amended by Act 11 of 1953 was:

"Not withstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, the Custodian may cancel any allotment or terminate any lease or amend the terms of any lease or agreement under which any evacuee property is held or occupied by a person, where such allotment, lease or agreement has been granted or entered into after the 14th day of August 1947."

It has, however, been held in a number of cases in which the point has arisen that those powers are circumscribed by rules made by the Central Government in exercise of its rule-making power as conferred by Section 56 of the Act, the relevant portions of which read

"(1) The Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, make rules to carry out the purposes of this Act.

(2) in particular, and without prejudice to the generality ot the foregoing power, such rules may provide for all or any of the following matters, namely: (1) the circumstances in which leases and allotments may be cancelled or terminated or the terms of any lease or agreement varied; * *"

5. A set of rules has in fact been formulated by the Central Government in exercise of its powers under tins Section , and amended from time to time, and a perusal of these rules shows that they refer to various Section s of the Act and are evidently framed under the various headings contained in Sub-Section (2) of Section 56. Rule 14 deals particularly with cancellation or variation of leases and allotments.

6. It must he mentioned here that in the Punjab the enormous problem of accommodating millions of refugees from the West Punjab on lands evacuated by Muslims had to be faced and the lines on which this problem was tackled were gradually worked out and finally formulated in a volume called the Land Resettlement Manual, in which principles were laid down regarding such matters as in which district refugees from the various districts of the West Punjab were to be accommodated, and generally how the rival claims regarding different qualities of lands to be allotted were