Judgment:
Kiran Anand Lall, J.
1. In this Regular Second Appeal, the appellant-state has challenged judgment and decree dated 9.8.1982 of the learned Additional District Judge, Sonepat vide which he upheld the verdict of trial Court decreeing the suit of Chander Singh plaintiff (since deceased) for possession of the suit land. Chander Singh having died. Dharam Pal etc. were substituted as his legal representatives.
2. The claim of Chander Singh, in the suit, was that he had been in possession of the suit land, as a tenant under its previous owner viz, the proprietary body of village Purkhas, since kharif 1967, and prior to him, his father was tenant on it since the year 1954. Later on, the appellant-state became its owner and mutation was sanctioned in its favour on 31.7.1971. But, possession over it, even thereafter, remained to be his. However, the appellant-State got an application under Section 4 of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction & Rent Recovery) Act, 1973 (for short 'the Act') filed for his ejectment on the ground that this possession over it was unauthorised. The Collector, Sonepat allowed the application and ordered his ejectment vide order dated 24.7.1974, copy Ex.P2. Even in appeal filed before the Commissioner, Ambala Division, he remained unsuccessful as the Commissioner upheld the order of ejectment. He, thereupon, filed Civil Writ Petition No. 4585 of 1975 for the quashing of orders of the Collector and the Commissioner, and obtained stay order against his ejectment, on 5.8.1975. Inspite of that, the appellant took forcible possession from him and got a fictitious entry made in the Rojnamcha of the Patwari, indicating that possession had been taken from him on 14.7.1975, in execution of the ejectment order. The proprietary body of the village filed a suit against the appellant-State for cancellation of the mutation, while Chander Singh filed the present suit against it, for obtaining possession of the land.
3. In written statement, the appellant-State admitted that Chander Singh had remained in cultivating possession of the suit land, as a tenant under the proprietary body of the village, from kharif 1968 upto 30.7.1971 i.e. the date it was mutated in its (of appellant) favour. It was further admitted that the possession of land continued to remain with Chander Singh even after the appellant became its owner. But it was pleaded that the revenue authorities delivered possession of the land to the State, on 14.7.1975, in execution of the ejectment orders. It was denied that Chander Singh had been dispossessed on 6.8.1975.
4. Both the courts below found that the suit land had remained in the possession of Chander Singh, as a tenant, since kharif 1967. The trial court further found that he was dispossessed therefrom on 6.8.1975 while the first Appellate Court slightly modified this finding by holding that he was dispossessed on 14.7.1975 i.e. before the passing of stay order in the writ petition.
5. I have heard Mr. Alok Jain, learned counsel for the appellant-State, and Mr. J.L.Malhotra learned counsel for the respondent and have also carefully gone through the records.
6. As stated above, it is admitted case of the appellant-State that Chander Singh remained in cultivating possession of the suit land from kharif 1967 to 30.7.1971, as a tenant under the proprietary body of the village and further, that he continued to remain in possession even after its ownership was mutated in the name of appellant-State. The revenue records including the copy of jamabandi Ex.Pl also show that the land remained in his possession as a tenant, since kharif 1967. The appellant had admitted this fact even in Ex.P4 which is copy of written statement filed by it in a suit filed against it by the proprietary body of the village. It may also be mentioned that in the present suit, it was. not the case of the appellant, in the written statement that Chander Singh had ceased to be a tenant on the land before the ejectment order was passed against him on 24.7.1974.
7. The position which, therefore, emerges is that Chander Singh had entered into possession of the suit land as a tenant much before the appellant-State became its owner and he continued to remain in its possession even after it was mutated in the name of the appellant. In other words, he was in authorised possession of the land when the ejectment order under Section 4 of the Act was passed against him. As such, by no stretch of imagination, he could be termed as an unauthorised occupant over it, at the time ejectment proceedings were started against him. That being so, the provisions of Section 4 of the Act could not be made applicable to him for seeking his ejectment on the ground of being in unauthorised occupation of public premises. Reference in this connection may be made, with advantage, to AIR 1973 Supreme Court 66 Raj Kumar Devinder Singh and Anr. v. State of Punjab and Ors., wherein it was held that if a person was in possession of the property, before the date of the sale of the property to the government, it could not be said that he entered into possession of public premises, for, at the time when he was in occupation of the property,the property was not public premises and clause (a) of Section 3 of the Punjab Act No. 31 of 1959 cannot obviously apply. The ratio of this case is fully applicable to the facts of the present case, as the definition of unauthorised occupation of public premises in the Punjab Act and the one in the Haryana Act is the same. It was also held in the case of Raj Kumar Devinder Singh and another (supra) that the Collector would get jurisdiction to issue a notice under Section 4(1) of the Act only when the person to whom notice is given is in unauthorised occupation of the property in question and not otherwise and that the issue of notice by the Collector to the person who is not in unauthorised occupation of the public premises, as defined in Section 3 of the Act, is without jurisdiction and is liable to be quashed. This case applies on all fours to the facts of the case in hand.
8. In view of the above discussed legal position, the orders passed by the Collector and the Commissioner for the ejectment of Chander Singh from the suit land were clearly illegal and without jurisdiction and were as such, rightly so declared by the trial court and the first appellate court.
9. Admittedly, Chander Singh was dispossessed from the suit land in execution of the ejectment orders. And, as those ejectment orders were illegal and without jurisdiction, his dispossession from the land was also illegal. That being so, both the courts rightly held that he was entitled to get back possession of the land.
10. There is, thus, no merit in the appeal and the same is dismissed, leaving parties to bear their own costs.