1988 PLP 1662 (MLD)

This Constitutional petition has been riled to call in question the impugned order of a Notified Officer cancelling the allotment of the petitioner.

2. The petitioner's case in brief is that he is a claimant displaced person from East Punjab who had filed as many as seven claims with respect to the lands located in different areas of East Punjab. However, he had only been able to secure partial satisfaction of these claims and uptodate balance of units on his original claim forms Nos. 8760, 8762 and 1094 were still pending unsatisfied.

3. There was an Inspection Team constituted by the Board of Revenue for checking of allotments which happened to examine the case of the petitioner in village Sadhoki District Gujranwala. The report then saw the light of the day on 3‑7‑1978 when a notice was issued and the case sent to Additional Settlement Commissioner (Land)/Chief Settlement Commissioner, Gujranwala. The file was then transferred to a Notified Officer at Lahore.

4. The learned Notified Officer by his order dated 22‑9‑1981 held that the petitioner had obtained an allotment of 3618 P.I. Units against his wrongly worked out entitlement of 3794 P.I. Units. According to his view, the petitioner's claim in respect to Kotla Suleman, Tehsil Sarhand, Patiala State (India) came to 2529 P.I. Units and not 3794 P.I. Units. He accordingly cancelled an area equal to 1265 P.I. Units from village Sadhoke, Tehsil and District Gujranwala.

5. The petitioner then filed this writ petition in which he clearly took up the position that the allotment worked out equivalent to 3618 was fictitious and imaginary and that the land allotted was mostly banjar qadeem and it was a matter of simple calculation which the learned notified officer failed to undertake. Had he correctly taken the classification of soil and the number of units prescribed per acre, he would have arrived at the correct figure and thus not cancelled the petitioner's allotment on imaginative figure which had no touch of reality.

6. A report was called for from the notified officer whose stand is that he relied on the entries of the R.L.1I register and the statement of the Patwari.

7. I think this is highly unsatisfactory way of dealing with valuable rights of claimants. On examination of R.L.11, I find that the grievance 4 the petitioner ha:, substance because there are many cuttings in so far as total number of units utilized is concerned. However every filed member and its classification are legibly written. It was, therefore, required of the learned Notified Officer to consult the special Jamabandi and to work out the total number of units consumed for allotment at R.L.‑II Khata Nos. 86 and 87 of village Sadhoke District Gujranwala in the name of the petitioner. There was also an entry in column No.8 that beshi had been given on account of thur. 'The failure of the Notified Officer therefore to apply his own conscious mind to work out the evaluation of land allotted at the R.L.‑II, Khata in terms of the P.I. Units is a patent illegality and amounts to failure to exercise jurisdiction. Therefore, instead of merely relying on a suspicious entry when all the material was before him to come to a definite finding, his reliance on a mere statement of the Patwari which did not supply the particulars regarding each field number together with its classification was of no consequence and could not have been made the basis for the decision.

8. The next point urged by the petitioner was that there was stilt pending entitlement of the petitioner which could have been adjusted even in case there was some excess to be found. This submission is being made without conceding the correctness of the finding of the notified Officer. The reply of the Notified Officer in this respect is that this plea had not been taken by the petitioner before him that his balance P.I. Units out of other claims were still pending.

9. I am not satisfied with the reply. There is no counter‑affidavit filed to the affidavit of the petitioner. I further feel that when proceedings in the nature of sections 10 and 11 of the Displaced Persons (Land Settlement) Act, 1958 are being taken, a Notified Officer is under a legal obligation to himself correctly work out the entitlement of a claimant and m the light of it to work out the allotment obtained by him. It is rather difficult to appreciate how without taking into consideration the total entitlement of a claimant, a finding regarding excess of allotment could have been arrived at. The matter did not depend on a plea being raised. The failure to objectively ascertain the entitlement will reflect on the nature of the proceedings conducted by the Notified Officer. The particulars of the claims in which the petitioner has share have been given in para. 2 of the writ petition in detail.

10. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as the learned counsel for the Settlement Department, I have arrived at the conclusion that a case of failure to exercise jurisdiction on the part of the Notified Officer has been made out. In such a situation, 1 would order that the case be remanded to the Notified Officer for a fresh decision. He shall decide the matter after correctly working out the total entitlement of the petitioner and taking into consideration all his claims. Moreover, the allotment obtained by the petitioner in village Sadhoke at the R.L.‑II Khata would itself be worked out in terms of P.I.Units value after taking into account the classification of soil as mentioned in the Special Jamabandi and the units prescribed therefore in the Jantri. It will be open to the petitioner to raise all available pleas before the Notified Officer. In the circumstances of the case, there shall be no order as to costs. M.Y.H./2798/L Case remanded.