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(a) West Pakistan Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, 1957-

- Para, 68 read with Scrutiny of Claims (Evacuee Property) Regula tion, 1961 (M. L. R. No. 89), para. 8-Surrender and repurchase of surrendered land-"Allotment" and not "confirmed" or "final allot ment"-Only condition precedent for surrendering or repurchasing surrendered land.

Preliminary allotment had been made in favour of respondent years before and the only condition precedent for surrendering or repurchasing the surrendered land under Martial Law Regulation No. 89 was allotment and not confirmed or final allotment.

(b) Scrutiny of Claims (Evacuee Property) Regulation, 1960 (M. L. R. 84)--

Para. 4 read with Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commis sioner's letter dated 28-3-1961 (re : allotment of land etc. on basis of entitlement certificates in forms QPR & URV)-Only further allot ments banned by Chief Settlement Commissioner-Allotments already made even though preliminary- Cancellation of such allotments not .contemplated.

Only further allotments of land on the basis of entitlement certificates issued before Regulation No. 84 came into force, has been stopped by the Chief Settlement Commissioner. The circular, however, did not even remotely suggest that allotments that had already been made were to be cancelled.

Muhammad Hasan for Petitioners.

Ahmad Hasan Khan for Respondent No. 1.

Nemo for the Remaining Respondents.

Dates of hearing : 14th and 19th February 1963.

Mst. Khadija Begum, respondent No. 1, a displaced person from the non-agreed area, received an entitlement certificate in form QPR-V for a total of 19,814 units under clause 2 (a) of the Supplementary Rural Scheme. Allotment of agricultural land equal to 9,26 units was confirmed in her favour on the 30th of November 1960, in Khata No. 756 of R.L.-II Mauza Kharianwala, District Sheikhupura, while that equal to 1,412 units was similarly confirmed on the 22nd of October 1960, in Khata No. 41 of R.L. II, village Ayya, District Sheikhupura. Land equal to 7,788 units was proposed for allotment in her favour in Khata No. 260 of R. L: II, village Kud Lathi on the 18th of April 1960. It is this last allotment which is the subject matter of dispute in the present writ petition.

2 This proposal was examined on a preliminary basis on the 11th of August 1960, and the following orders were passed:-

3. The matter came up for hearing again on the 5th of October 1960, when the following order was passed by the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner (Lands) :-

A note signed by the Patwari of the Halqa and running as follows, appears thereafter on Annexure'C':- ,

Then follows an order of the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner Lands) dated the 9th of April 1961, which runs as under :-

The Circular Letter, referred to above, on which the order of cancellation of the Khata was based, runs as follows: -

"Office of the Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner, West Pakistan, Lahore Division, dated 28th March 1961.

From

S. A. Latif,

Settlement and Rehabilitation

Commissioner (L),

West Pa-kistan.

Subject -Allotment of land etc., on the basis of entitlement certificate inform QPR & URV.

Pir Ahsan-ud-Din, Chief Settlement & Rehabilitation Commissioner, Pakistan.

Memorandum

In view of the Promulgation of tile Scrutiny of Claims (Evacuee Property) Regulation No. 84 of 1960, and the resultant necessity of re-verification of claims as defined in paragraph 2 (d) of the above said Regulation, the Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Pak.) had decided that further allotments of land should not now be made on the basis of entitlement certificates in forms QPR & URV in respect of such claims except those relating to the territory in the occupation of India.

(Sd.)

Settlement & Rehabilitation

Commissioner, West Pakistan."

This letter purports to have been based upon the provisions of the Scrutiny of Claims (Evacuee Property) Regulation No. 84 of 1960, which had been issued by the Chief Martial Law Administrator on the 29th of September 1959, and before dealing with this letter I deem it proper to state shortly what Martial Law Regulation No. 84 was. This regulation dealt with claims submitted under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Rules, 1955, in respect of property referred to in Schedules IV and V, appended to the said Rules, being property held in India or in any territory in the occu pation of India and not being property situated within East Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, the Patiala and East Punjab States Union or the States of Alwar, Bharatpur or Bikaner. In other words, it was applicable only to the areas which have come to be known as the non-agreed areas. This Regulation required a displaced person who had submitted such a claim to submit to the Chief Settlement Commissioner a written statement relating to all the true facts of such claim, and it was ordered that such statement shall thereupon replace his original claim. The Chief Settlement Commissioner was required to prepare a scheme for verification of claims under this Regulation, and orders passed on such verification or re-verification were to form the basis of fresh allotment. Paragraph 4 of this Regulation may be reproduced as under since it has a direct bearing on the letter referred to above:-

"4. Restriction of the powers of officers under the act.-Notwithstanding anything contained in the Act, no officer appointed thereunder shall, after the commencement of this Regulation and save as is provided by or under it, verify or re-verify any claim and all previous orders passed by any such officer in respect of a claim shall, on verification or re-verification of such claim under this Regulation and unless otherwise directed by orders of verification or re-verification, stand annulled."

This Regulation was reconstituted by Martial Law Regulation No. 89 issued by the Chief Martial Law Administrator on the 23rd of August 1961. The reconstituted Regulation, Inter alias, provided that no claim was to be verified under the Registration of Claims (Displaced Persons) Act, 1956, after the commencement of this Regulation except as provided in the Regulation. A scale of entitlement was fixed by clause 5 of the Regulation which drastically cut down the entitlement of persons coming from the non-agreed areas. Entitlement certificates were to be issued under clause 6 which were to supersede those previously issued under the Rules. Any area held by a claimant, which was in excess of the entitlement calculated under the new Regulation, was to be surrendered and the same was to vest in the Government of West Pakistan instead of reverting to the compensation pool. The Chief Settlement Commissioner was required to frame a scheme for giving effect--to this Regulation.

4. Some of the Khasra Numbers in dispute were confirmed on the 9th of November 1961, in the name of the Father of petitioners Nos. 1 to 5 in Khata No. 265 of R.L-II without any examination on a preliminary basis.

5. On account of the operation of Clause 5 of the Regulation the entitlement of respondent No. 1 was reduced from 19,814 units to 3.731 units.

6. A scheme was framed by the Chief Settlement Commissioner in compliance with rule 11 of the Regulation quoted above. Under clause 16 of the Scheme, respondent No: 1 was required to file a declaration in a form appended to the Scheme, which she did, and which forms part of the record as Annexure 'E'. In consequence -of this, an allocation order was passed by the Deputy Commissioner, a copy of which is Annexure 'F' -to the writ petition, whereby area equivalent to 3,731 units in Mauza Khariawala Kud Lathi, Tehsil and District Sheikhupura, was confirmed in the name of respondent No. 1, while land equal to 16,083 in the same Mauza, which stood allotted in her name, was cancelled and it vested in the Government. On the 25th of September 1961, an MR-V was issued to her and on that basis she filed an appeal against the order of allotment of the disputed Khasra Numbers in favour of petitioners Nos. I to 5 on the 20th of November 1961. The appeal was heard and decided ex parte, and the case was then remanded on the 5th of February 1962.

7. As under the new Regulations the claimants had become entitled to purchase the area surrendered by them, respondent No. 1, on the 26th of February 1962, made an application for purchasing all the area that she had surrendered in the three villages named above.

8. On the 13th of March 1962, the Assistant Settlement Commissioner (Lands), decided the remanded case in her favour and by an order passed on that date, the allotment of petitioners Nos. 1 to 5 of Khata No. 265 was cancelled and respondent No. 1 was held entitled to it.

9. The said petitioners went in appeal which was rejected by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner (Lands) on the 9th of July 1962, and a copy of his order is Annexure 'M'. On the 6th of October 1962, the Rehabilitation Commissioner (Lands) dismissed their revision petition, and a copy of his order is Annexure 'N'.

10. The main contention raised by the said petitioners before Rehabili tation authorities, which is the only contention pressed before me, was that under the Martial Law Regulations claimants were entitled to surrender only such lands as had been allotted to them, and since only a preliminary examination of the proposed allotment in favour of respondent No. 1 had been made when -the Regulation was promulgated, she could not be con sidered to be an allottee in respect of the land in dispute, wherefore she had no title either to surrender it or to purchase it thereafter. Since the impugned allotment. or preliminary examination was made under the West Pakistan Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme, 1957, its relevant provisions nay be considered with advantage.

11. Paragraph 68 of Part 11 of the West Pakistan Rehabilitation Settlement Scheme runs as follows :-

"68. After proposals have been drawn up and checked by the Tehsidar/ Mukhtiarkar and/or the Revenue Assistant, the Rehabilitation Authority competent to finalise the allotment will visit the village and examine the proposals. He may authorise Revenue Assistant, Additional Revenue Assistant or selected Tehsildar/Mukhtiarkar under him to visit the village where the total evacuee area is 200 acres or less for the preliminary allotment. The Deputy Rehabili tation Commissioner/Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner concerned will keep himself in constant touch with the state and progress of work and should not hesitate to pay a personal visit to a village if the officer authorized by him indicates that the local conditions require his personal attention. After such modifications as the competent Rehabilitation Authority may deem necessary to make, the proposed allotment will he announced to the claimants. They will, at the same time, be given an unsigned khatauni (Appendix VI) and asked to prefer any objection they have to the proposal within 15 days.

(2) After the expiry of the period the competent Rehabilitation Authority will again visit the village, and after hearing the objections provisionally finalize the proposals subject to final confirmation after payment of Rehabilitation fee at the prescribed rate, vide, clauses 21 and 22, Chapter IV, Part I of the Scheme. The final allotment will be incorporated in the second copy of the sketch which has already been prepared by the patwari. The khatauni given to the claimant earlier will be corrected, if necessary, and signed by the competent Rehabilitation Authority at this stage.

(3) With a view to accelerating Settlement work, the Deputy Rehabilita tion Commissioner/Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner should on the occasion of his first visit to the estate afford the intending claimants every opportunity of putting in the objections within the prescribed period as usual, and if be is satisfied that no objection has been filed within the stipulated time, he need not pay a second visit to such estates, but send for the records of the estate and confirm the allotments.

(4) The powers of finalizing allotment exercised by Assistant Rehabilita tion Commissioner will be strictly subject to the supervision and control of Deputy Rehabilitation Commissioner and 50 per cent. of the villages in which an Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner has announced and confirmed allotments, the allotments should be verified by the Deputy Rehabilitation Commissioner. The Deputy Rehabilita tion Commissioner will also check the work done by the Sub-Divisional officer in his capacity as Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner but the percentage of verification of villages in which he announces and confirms the allotments need not be same as in the case of other Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioners.

(5) An entry of the area given to a claimant over and above his verified claim under the Scheme in the capacity of a-

(a) tenant under another refugee allottee, or

(b) tenant under the Custodian, should be made in the penultimate column of the parchi taqsim by giving a note to this effect in the remarks column of the form prescribed for the purpose. Two more copies of the khatauni shall be prepared. One copy will remain with patwari/tappedar and the other copy will be sent to the District Revenue Record Room. The signature or thumb-impression of the allottee will be taken on all the three copies. All the khataunis of an estate meant for retention by the patwari himself or for despatch to District Record Room should be bound in one or, if necessary, in more volumes and paged by the patwari instead ...pf keeping them loose, as soon as the rehabilitation settlement work is finalised in that estate. The names of right-holders in the khatauni should be arranged according to their order in shajra-nasab."

It will thus be seen that the first stage is the drawing up of proposals and its checking by the Tahsildar, etc. Once this has been done, and this was ad mittedly done in the present case, the Rehabilitation Authority competent to finalise the allotment will visit the village and examine the proposals. In the in stant case it was the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner (Lands) who was competent to do so, and a perusal of Annexure C', relevant portions of which have already been reproduced above, will show that the Assistant Rehabili tation Commissioner (Lands) did visit the village in which the property in dispute is situate and did examine the proposals on 11th of August, 1960. He bad to go there for the purposes of preliminary allotment, and we find from Annexure C' that preliminary allotment was duly made in favour of respondent No. 1.

Clause (2) of paragraph 68 provides for a second visit to the village by the Rehabilitation Authority after fifteen days to see if any objections are made and to provisionally finalise the matter. Annexure C' bears out that such a visit was also made by the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner and that there were no objections preferred. No further step had, therefore, to be taken by respondent No. 1 in the matter and a date was fixed only for the purpose of tracing out the relevant papers which happened to have been misplaced at that moment. The report by the patwari on Annexure 'C', reproduced above, shows that he was able to trace out the papers on the 6th of, October 1960. It is, therefore, clear that preliminary allotment had been made in favour of respondent No. I as far back as August 1960. and the only condition precedent for surrendering or repurchasing the surrendered land under Martial Law Regulation No. 89 being allotment and not confirmed or final allotment, Mst. Khadija Begum, respondent No. 1, bud the necessary qualification for this purpose. This, therefore, disposes of the only objection that the petitioner had against the orders passed in l favour of respondent No. 1.

12. It may, however, be stated in passing that the order dated the '8th of September 1961, whereby the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner (Lands) cancelled the Khata of respondent No. 1, was ultra vires. A perusal of the circular letter would show that only further allotments of land on the basis of entitlement certificates issued before Regulation No. 84 came into force, had been stopped by the Chief Settlement Commissioner.' The circular, however, did not even remotely suggest that allotments that had already been made were to be cancelled. In view of the finding given by me above that a preliminary allotment had, in this case, been made, the order of the Assistant Rehabilitation Commissioner dated the 8th of September 1961, is beyond the scope of the circular referred to above, and has, therefore, no force or existence in the eye of law.

13. In this view of the matter, I reject the writ petition, but leave the parties to bear their own costs.

S. A. H. Petition dismissed.

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