P L D 1963 W (PLP)

Ghulab Mehtab Din and Nawab Din sons of Ballo 108 kanals

4. Faqir Muhammad, son of Vero and Sharif, son of Ballo 80 kanals

5. Firoz Din, Ismail, Sharif and Nazir sons of Sunder 61 kanals

6. Hamid son of Nawab ... 63 kanals The orders are of three lines and of a stereotyped nature: "The allottee is absent. The lagan for 1957‑58 has not been paid upto the present. Therefore, the allotment is cancelled. Tehsildar should order recovery of lagan and the area should be given out on tenders." There is no evidence that the petitioners have been served and were deliberately absent before the Colony Assistant. They state that they were never served, otherwise they would have been present. As soon as they came to know they deposited the lagan in 1958 and took the land on tender basis so as not to lose the rights in their lands, which they are now holding as successful tenderers. They also claim that they filed the appeals as soon as possible after they came to know of the cancellation of order, in December 1958, before the Commissioner, Rawalpindi Division, since at that time the Sargodha District was a part of Rawalpindi Division. They could not trace as to what happened to these appeals, when the new Sargodha Division was constituted. The Commissioner Sargodha, who in his brief orders, dated 13‑3‑1961, dealing with 7 appeals, dismissed them all as time‑barred as he considered the delay of 2 years in filing them as uncondonable. The six petitioners, whose particulars have been given above have now come up in revision from this order. I have heard all these revisions jointly and they will be dis posed of in this single order, as the Commissioner has also done in the seven appeals before him. The petitioners' counsel has produced a decision by the Additional Commissioner, Rawalpindi, in Appeals Nos. 149 and 150 of 1959‑60, dated 26‑12‑1959, wherein in similar circumstances he observed: "Although no doubt legan for a particular year is due in advance and the two appellants were negligent in depositing the same in time, notice has to be taken of the fact that efforts were lacking on the part of the Colonization Office to effect the recovery of the same in time. There have been cases where legan for over a year or even two has been lying in arrears until a special check up was ordered. The two appellants fulfil led all other conditions of allotments and it is in my opinion unduly harsh if their allotments were cancelled. They have in fact even deposited the rent for the year 1958‑59 which may be got verified from Colonization Office, I accordingly accept these appeals and set aside the order of the learned Collector. The appellant shall be allowed to deposit the legan for the coming year provided they abide by all the conditions of their allotments." The principle underlying the above ruling is sound and the Colony Assistant's order was harsh in dealing with the allot ments made in favour of landless refugee tenant. The State has, in fact, been solicitious enough for the welfare of landless tenants of this category to allow them the privilege of acquiring proprie tary rights on the same principle as under the Ejected Tenants' Scheme 1958. Six months delay in payment of legan does not justify the ejectment of all these petty allottees unless there have been some other breaches of conditions. The Colony Assistant's order should have clearly pointed out and adduced the proof on the file that petitioners were served with notices to appear and pay up the single default in legan dues and that they were wilfully avoiding service before taking the cruel ex pane decision against them. I have carefully considered whether it would be proper to issue notice to the Collector or to dispose of the case. Secretary (Colonies), has also put up policy instructions and is of the opinion that in a clear cut ease of this kind, it would merely be a waste of time to call for reports and to issue notice. I am inclined to agree with him. I would, therefore, accept the revisions, set aside the orders of the Collector and the Commissioner and restore the tenancies to the petitioners. K. M. A. Revision accepted.