# RAJKUMAR DEVINDRA SINGH & ANR v. STATE OF PUNJAB & OTHERS

- **Citation:** [1973] 2 S.C.R. 166
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1972-09-11
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 69 of 1967
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/rajkumar-devindra-singh-anr-v-state-of-punjab-others-5769
- **Pages:** 6

## Headnote

166
RAJKUMAR DEVINDRA SINGH & ANR.
v.
STATE OF PUNJAB & OTHERS
September 11, 1972
LJ· M. SHELAT, D. G. PALEK.>\R, K. K. MATHEW, S. N. DWIVED!
ANDY. V. CHANDRACHUD, JJ.]
Punjab Public Premises and Land (Evictiorl and Rent Recovery) A.ct
1959, Section 3 and Section 4 (!)-Unauthorised occupation of public
premises-Possession before the prenti'ies became public premises-Eviction
cannot be ordered under the Act.
B.
The appellants, along with their brothers, were residing in an ances•
tral property.
The eldest member of the family sold the property to
tho State Government as property belonging to him. After the sale, the
c
State Government issued notice of eviction to the appellant under Section 4(1) of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent
Recovery Act, 1959. The writ petition, challenging legality of the eviction order was rejected by the single Judge, and then on appeal by the
Division Bench of the Punjab High Court. Before this Court the appell~nl<
contended. that they were in possesSion under a legal title and that the
impugned notice was issued without iurisdicti.on ..
HELD : The appdlants were in possession of the property before
I>
the date of sale to the State Government, when it was not public prepremises. The word "thereof" in Sec. 3 ( 1) m'lkes it clear that the person
muot have entered into poEscssion of public premises before or after the
commencement of the Act in order that he may be deemed to be in unauthorised occupation.
Uinless the premises are public premises on the
date of possession, Section 3 (a) is not app!ic~ble. [170A-B]
HELD, further, that Section 3(b) is attracted only where the person
E
continues in possession after the cancellation or determination of al1otn1ent, lease or grant from Government.
The
appf:llan~s \\'ere not in
unauthorised occup21tion of public premises .s.nd therefore the notice under
Section 4(1) was issued without jurisdiction:· [171A]
Appeal allowed.

## Text

166
RAJKUMAR DEVINDRA SINGH & ANR.
v.
STATE OF PUNJAB & OTHERS
September 11, 1972
LJ· M. SHELAT, D. G. PALEK.>\R, K. K. MATHEW, S. N. DWIVED!
ANDY. V. CHANDRACHUD, JJ.]
Punjab Public Premises and Land (Evictiorl and Rent Recovery) A.ct
1959, Section 3 and Section 4 (!)-Unauthorised occupation of public
premises-Possession before the prenti'ies became public premises-Eviction
cannot be ordered under the Act.
B.
The appellants, along with their brothers, were residing in an ances•
tral property.
The eldest member of the family sold the property to
tho State Government as property belonging to him. After the sale, the
c
State Government issued notice of eviction to the appellant under Section 4(1) of the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent
Recovery Act, 1959. The writ petition, challenging legality of the eviction order was rejected by the single Judge, and then on appeal by the
Division Bench of the Punjab High Court. Before this Court the appell~nl<
contended. that they were in possesSion under a legal title and that the
impugned notice was issued without iurisdicti.on ..
HELD : The appdlants were in possession of the property before
I>
the date of sale to the State Government, when it was not public prepremises. The word "thereof" in Sec. 3 ( 1) m'lkes it clear that the person
muot have entered into poEscssion of public premises before or after the
commencement of the Act in order that he may be deemed to be in unauthorised occupation.
Uinless the premises are public premises on the
date of possession, Section 3 (a) is not app!ic~ble. [170A-B]
HELD, further, that Section 3(b) is attracted only where the person
E
continues in possession after the cancellation or determination of al1otn1ent, lease or grant from Government.
The
appf:llan~s \\'ere not in
unauthorised occup21tion of public premises .s.nd therefore the notice under
Section 4(1) was issued without jurisdiction:· [171A]
Appeal allowed.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 69 of
1967.
F
Appeal by certificate from the judgment and order dated
October 15, 1963 of the Punjab High Comt at Chandigarh in
LP.A. No. 330 of 1963.
A. Subba Rao, Bhuvansesh Kumari, J. B. Dadachanji, O. C.
Mathur and Ravinder Narain for the appellant.
V. C. Mahajan and R. N. Sachthey for respondents Nos.
l
to 3.
Ramamurthi & Co. for the Intervener (State of Jammu and
Kashmir).
S. C. Majumdar for the Intervener (Megalal Chhaganlal
!P) Ltd.).
Vinod Kumar, Krishan Lal Mehta and Veneer
Kumar for
t~e iJitervener.
G
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RAJIWMAll v. PUNJAB (Mathew, J.)
167
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
MATHEW, J. The appellants filed a writ petition before
the High Court of Punjab for the issue of an appropriate writ or
-0rder quashing a notice dated June 21,
1961, issued under
s. 4(1) of'the Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and
Rent Recovery) Act, 1959, hereinafter called the 'Act', directing
the 2nd appellant to show cause why an order of eviction should
not be passed against him in respect of the premises in question.
The appellant's 'case was as follows.
On the demise of the
late ·Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, his eldest son, Maharaja Yadavindra Singh succeeded to the gaddi of th~ erstwhile State of
Patiala which subsequently merged with the State of Punjab.
Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, along with his sons
including the
appellants, constituted a joint Hindu
family.
The appellants
along with the other sons of Mabaraja Bhupinder Singh had · an
interest, by virtue of !heir being coparceners, in all the properties
of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh.
The appellants, along with their
brothers, were in occupation of a property known as "colonel
Mistry's House", Moti Bagh Palace, Patiala, in their own right as
the sons of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. It was an ancestral property in the hands of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh and they were
residing as members of the family in the said
property.
On
March 10, 1958, Maharaja Yadavindra Sin¥h sold Moti Bagh
Palace to the Government of Punjab, as property belonging to
him, and delivered actual possession ol certain portion and agreed
to deliver possession of the rest subsequently.
The State Government was not competent to evict them under the provisions of the
Act as they were not in unauthorized occupation of any public
premises and that the impugned notice was issued without jurisdiction.
The counter-affidavit on behalf of r,espondents I and 2 was
filed by Sri S. P. Jain, Deputy Secretary to the Government of
Punjab. and it stated that there was no proof that the appellants
were the sons of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, that Bhupinder
and his sons were not members of a Hindu Undivided Family:
<; · that the Maharaja and his progeny being lats, did not constitute
a Joint Hindu Family and that the annellants never acquired any
interest by birth in the property. The counter-affidavit did not
admit the allegation of the aopellants that they were in possession
of the property as coparceners.
II
The learned single ·jud~e came to the conclusion that sincf:'
the case raised complicated Qu.estions of Jaw and fact, it was not
meet that they should be resolved in a netition under Act. 226
and that. even if the appellants were in possession before the date
168
SUPllEMJI OOUJlT llBPOl.TS
(1973) 2 LC.L
of· the sale of the property to the Goverwnent, they wete in unauthorised 1JCcupatio1J of public premises since the appellants
were not holding the property under any allotment, lease or grant
. from the Goverwnent after the date of the sale deed and dismissed the writ petition. A letters petent appeal was preferred
against this decision and that was dismissed in limine.
This
appeal, by certificate, is against the deci~ion of the High Court
in the letters patent appeal.
The appeal as originally filed, challenged the cc, ;·0ctness 9f
the order of the High Court, on. the basis of the decisioi:i of this
Court in Northern India Caterers Private Ltd. and Another v.
State of Punjab and Another('). But the Punjab Legislature
amended the Act by passing the Punjab Public Premises and
Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery)
Amendmen\ Act,
1969.
By s. I 02 of the Amendment Act, the jurisdiction of the Civil
Court, among other things, to entertain a suit or proceeding for
eviction of any person who is in unauthorised occupation of any
public premises, was taken away.
On their motion, the apjiellants were permitted by this Court to amend the appeal petition
and challenge the validity of the relevant provisions of the
Amendment Act, and the appeal petition was amended "accordingly.
Before us, the appellants raised two contentions : (I) that
they were in possession of the property in their capacity as coparceners with Maharaja Y adavindra Singh, or at any rate, they
were residing in the property with a right of residence in the
property as junior members of the family and the Government
cannot, by resorting to the provisions of the Act, summarily
evict them from the property on the ground that they were . in
unauthorised occupation of public premises within the meaning
of s. 3 of the Act; (2) thats. lOE of the Punjab Public Premises
and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Amendment Act, 1969,
which barred the jurisdiction of the Civil Court to entertain a
suit for recovery of possession of public premises is constitutionally bad.
The first question, therefore, is whether the appellants were
in unauthorised occupation of public premises.
S. 2 ( d) of the
Act defines 'pub~ic premises' as under :
"public premises .means any premises belonging to,
or taken on lease or requisitioned by, or on behalf of,
the State ~overnment. or requisitioned by the competent authonty under the Punjab Requisitioning
and
Acquisition of Immovable Property Act,
1953, and
(I) [1957] 3 S.C.R. J99.
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RAJKUMAR v. PUNJAB (Mathew, J.)
includes any premises bel~>nging to any <l:istrict board,
municipal committee, notified area comrruttee or panchayat."
169
S. 3 of the Act deals with what is unauthorised occupation ot
public premises. That section says :
"flor purposes of. this Act; a persnn shall be deeme4
to be in unauthorised occupation of any public premises:-
" (a) where he has whether before or after the commencement of this Act, entered into possession thereof
otherwise than under aild in pursuance of any allotment, lease or grant; or
"(b) where he, being an allottee, lease or grantee,
has, by reason of the determination or cancellation of
his allotment, lease or grant in accordance with . the
terms in that behalf therein contained, ceased, whether
before or after the commencement of this Act, to. be
entitled to occupy or hold such public premise5.
" ( c) where any person authorised to occupy any
public premises has, whether before or after the com•
mencement of this Act;
(i) sublet in contravention of the terms of allotment, lease or grant, without the permission of the
State Government or of any other authority competent
to permit such sub-letting the whole or any part of such
public premises;
(ii) otherwise acted in contravention of any
of
the terms express or implied, under which he is authorised to occupy such public premises.
"Explanation : For purposes of clause (a), a person shall not merely by reason of the fact that he has
paid any rent be deemed to have entered into .possession as allottee, lessee or grantee."
S. 4(1) of the Act provides that, if Collector is of opinion that
any persons are in unauthorised occupation of any public premi.ses situate within his ju~sdicti?n and that they
should be
eVIcted, the Collector shall issue, m the manner provided in subsections (2), (3) and (4), a notice in writing, calling upon all
persons concerned to show cause why an order of eviction should
not be made.
A person shall be deemed to be in unauthorised occupation
of public premises for purposes of s. 3(a) where he has, before
170
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
(1973] 2 S.C.R.
or after the commencement of the Act, entered into possession
thereof, otherwise than under and in pursuance of any allotment,
lease or grant.
The word 'ther.::of' makes it clear that the per- ·
son must have entered into possc1sion of public premises before
or after the commencement of the Act in order that he may be
deemed to be in unauthorised occupation. If the appellants were
in possession before the date of the sale of the property to the
Goven.ment, it could not be said that the appellants entered into
possession of public premises, for, at the time when they were in
occupation of the property, the property was not public premises.
Then it wa~ either the joint family property or the property of the
Maharaja, namely, Yadavindra Singh.
The property was not
public premises before it was sold to the Government.
So if the
appellants were in possession· of the property before it was sold
to the Government, it could not be said that they entered i.lto
possession of public premises before or after the commencement of
the Act and clause ( l!.) of s. 3 of the Act cannot obviously app[y
and the appellants were not in unauthorised occupation of public
premises within the meaning of clause (a) ·of s. 3.
Therefore,
the question is, whether the appellants were in possession of the
property before it was sold to the Government.
It was alleged in paragraph 2 of the affidavit in support of the
writ petition that the appellants were in possession of the property
in their own right for a number of years as sons of Maharaja
Bl:upi~der Singh; paragraph 2 of the counter-affidavit stated that
the ailegation is admitted to the extent that the appellants "are, at
present residing in Colone!'. Mistry's House, Moti Bagh. Patiala.
Rest of the para is not udmitted".
There was no denial of the
allegation that the appellants were in possession of the property
in their own right as sons of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. It is
difficult to understand how a Deputy Secretary to the Government
of Pnnjab could have personal'knowledge about the actual possession of the property in question before the sale deed was executed in favour of the Government.
The appellants .were admittedly in possession of the property
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on the date of the issue of the impugned notice. The respondents
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had no case that the appellants entered into possession of the property after the date of the sale. We are not very much concerned
with the title under which the appellants were in possession; what
is really relevant for this .case is whether the aopellants were in
possession of the property before the date of sale to the Government. We think that the case of the .al)pe]l"nts that thev were in
11
possession of the propertv before it was sold to the Government ·
must be 1aken as true. The learned single judge also appears to
have proceeded on the same basis.
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RAJKUMAR v. PUNJAB (Mat/1ew, J.)
J 71
Clause (b) of s. 3 of the Act speaks of an allottee, lessee or
grnntee who has, by determination or cancellation of his allotment,
lease o; grant, in accordance with the terms i": that behalf, ceased,
whether before or after the commencement of the Act to be entitled to occupy or hold such public premises. It is clear that for
this clause to apply, the person must be an allottee, lessee or grantee
from the Government. We do not thipk that this clause can apply
in ·1his case as the appellantsi wer~not allottees, lessees grantees of
the Covemrnent.
Clause ( c) of s. 3 of the Act can obviously have no application
to the case.
The appellants, were not, therefore, in unauthorised occupation of public premises within the meaning of . s. 3 of the Act.
It is only if the appellants were in unauthorized occupation of public premises that the Collector would get jurisdiction to issue a
notice under s. 4(1) of the Act. We, therefore, hold that the notice .
was ·issued without jurisdictiop. and it has to be quashed and we
do so.
In this view, we have no occasion to reach the question whether
the. impugned provisions of the Amendment Act are constitutionally
vabd and we do not express any opinion upon that p<>int. We set
aside the order of the High Court and allow the appeal with cost&
throughout.
S.B.
Appeal allowed.