IMPORTANT POINT
Surplus land--Allotment of--Resettlement--Ejected tenant has preferential right over sitting tenant.

Rajive Bhalla, J (Oral) -This order shall dispose of CWP Nos.5533 and 5534 of 1982, as identical questions of fact and law arise for adjudication.

2. The petitioner prays for the issuance of a writ in the nature of Certiorari for quashing the orders date 12.5.1981 and 22.9.1982, passed by the Commissioner, Ambala Division, Ambala and the Financial Commissioner, Haryana, respectively. In order to appreciate the controversy obtaining herein a brief narrative of the facts that have been extracted from CWP No.5533 of 1982, would be appropriate.

3. Shiv Dev Singh-respondent no.8 and his wife Harbans Kaur are admittedly big land owners. Shiv Dev Singh’s surplus area case was decided by the Collector, Panipat on 26.10.1960 by declaring 36 Std. Acres and 12.1/2 units of land as surplus. After a prolonged bout of litigation, the Financial Commissioner set aside the order of surplus area and remanded the case to the Collector for redetermination. In the meanwhile, the petitioner , a tenant of a small land owner evicted from his tenancy, subject to his re-settlement on surplus area,was allotted 5 Std. Acres of land from Shiv Dev Singh’s surplus area, Shiv Dev Singh’s surplus area was redetermined on 14.7.1976, and the area, which was allotted to the petitioner in 1971 once again fell in the surplus pool. The petitioner therefore approached the Collector, Agrarian for allotment/delivery of possession of the land allotted to him on 20.9.1971. Vide order dated 14.7.1976, the Collector Agrarian, accepted the petitioner’s prayer and directed delivery of possession of land to the petitioner. Pursuant to warrants of possession issued by the Collector, possession was delivered to the petitioner. Thereafter, an attempt was made to dispossess the petitioner. Proceedings under Section 145 Cr.P.C. were initiated and the land was attached. The petitioner, approached the Hon’ble High Court where the attachment was quashed on 22.8.1978, thus, accepting the petitioner’s possession.

4. Apparently, disappointed with the failure of his attempt to thwart the allotment of land to the petitioner, the big landowner manipulated two applications from respondents no.4 to 7, in the shape of objections, to the order of allotment, dated 14.7.1976. Respondents no.4 to 7 claimed that the land had been wrongly allotted to the petitioner, as he had colluded with his land owner to procure an order of ejectment. They also alleged that as they were sitting tenants of Shiv Dev Singh, they had a preferential right to allotment. The Collector, considered these objections but rejected them by holding that he has no jurisdiction to review his order.

5. Respondents no.4 to 7, instead of filing an appeal against the order of allotment, filed an appeal against the order dismissing their objections. The Commissioner, Ambala Division, Ambala, vide order dated 12.5.1981, accepted the appeal and held that while considering allotment to the petitioner, the Collector should have considered the provisions of The Haryana Utilisation of Surplus and other Area Scheme 1976 ( hereinafter referred to as the ‘Utilisation Scheme’), that prescribes the mode of allotment amongst various eligible categories of persons. The case was, therefore, remanded to the Collector. The petitioner filed a revision before the Financial Commissioner, Haryana, which was dismissed on 22.9.1982. The learned Financial Commissioner accepted the petitioner’s contentions that the order dated 14.7.1976 would be deemed to be an order allotting surplus area to the petitioner after its fresh determination, but however, held that allotment of surplus area to the petitioner would have to be examined afresh in terms of the order passed by the Commissioner.

6. Counsel for the petitioner submits that the learned Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner remanded the case to the Collector, without application of mind and for entirely irrelevant and illegal reasons. The Collector rightly held that he has no jurisdiction