Mr. Mehinder Singh Sullar, J.: - Tersenessly, the facts, culminating in the commencement, relevant for deciding the instant writ petition and emanating from the record, are that, in the wake of death of Surat Singh, the post of Lambardar of village Tharu, District Sonepat had fallen vacant. Ultimately, three candidates, namely, Anil Kumar son of Jai Narain (respondent No.4), Satpal son of Chander Bhan (petitioner) and Rajbir son of Saurat Singh applied and lodged their respective claims for the indicated post of Lambardar within the prescribed period.

2. Having considered the respective merits and de-merits of the candidates and after following the due procedure, as contemplated under the provisions of The Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 and the Rules framed thereunder (hereinafter to be referred as “the Act and the relevant Rules”), the Collector, Sonepat appointed Anil Kumar (respondent No.4) on the indicated post of Lambardar, by virtue of impugned order dated 31.10.2006 (Annexure P1).

3. Dissatisfied with the impugned order (Annexure P1), Satpal (petitioner) filed the appeal, which was accepted and he was ordered to be appointed as Lambardar by the Commissioner, Rohtak Division, by way of order dated 4.7.2008 (Annexure P2).

4. Aggrieved by the said order, Anil Kumar (respondent No.4) filed the revision, which was accepted, the order (Annexure P2) of Commissioner was set aside and the order (Annexure P1) of Collector, appointing him (respondent No.4) as Lambardar, was restored, by the Financial Commissioner (respondent No.1), by means of impugned order dated 23.4.2009 (Annexure P3).

5. Petitioner Satpal did not feel satisfied with the impugned order (Annexure P3) and preferred the instant writ petition, invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. That is how I am seized of the matter.

6. At the very outset, exhibiting the doubts in regard to the utility of the post of Lambardar, a Coordinate Bench of this Court (Alok Singh, J.) directed the States of Punjab and Haryana to consider the desirability to abolish the post of Lambardar and to file the affidavits, inter-alia, to the effect that what are the duties/functions, which are being discharged by the Lambardars and as to whether those functions/duties cannot be delegated to the Panchayat, vide interim order dated 26.8.2011.

7. Sequelly, in pursuance thereof, the States of Punjab and Haryana have submitted their respective affidavits, enumerating the functions, duties and liabilities of the Lambardar. It was explained that the Lambardar functions independently without any political interference. Any person having any alliance with any political party is not eligible to be appointed as Lambardar. On the other hand, the members of panchayat generally relate to the political parties. If the functions/duties of the Lambardar are assigned to the panchayats, then the reports to be received by the Government in respect of various matters of happenings in the village may be biased and such functions cannot be assigned to the panchayats. In this manner, it was reiterated by the States that abolition of post of Lambardar would neither legally be feasible nor appropriate in the administration of justice and public interest.

8. Above-all, the learned counsel have contended with some amount of vehemence that neither any of the parties, have challenged the institution nor claimed abolition of the post of Lambardar, in any manner in the writ petition, nor there is any pleading, material or prayer of the concerned parties to abolish the post. The further argument is that, whether to retain or abolish the post of Lambardar, is within the competence of Legislature/Executive/Government and this Court did not have the power/jurisdiction to direct them to legislate/amend the Act and Rules in this relevant behalf.

9. Such thus being the position on record, now the first core question, though extremely important, that arises for determination in this regard is