Rajasthan High Court - Jodhpur
Vijay Singh & Ors vs State (Panchayat Raj) & Ors on 21 March, 2013
Author: Amitava Roy
Bench: Amitava Roy
1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JODHPUR
D.B.Civil Writ Petition (PIL) No.602/2012
Vijay Singh & ors. V/s The State of Rajasthan & ors.
Date of Order:- 21.3.2013
PRESENT
Hon'ble the Chief Justice Mr.Amitava Roy
Hon'ble Mr.Justice V.K.Mathur
Mr.R.S.Choudhary for the petitioners.
Mr.Sandeep Bhandawat )
Mr.Moti Singh )- for the respondents.
Mr.GR Bhari )
ORDER
BY THE COURT (Per Hon'ble Mr.Amitava Roy, CJ)
The instant proceeding in the form of public interest litigation is for an appropriate writ, order or direction to the respondents to remove the encroachments from the land claimed to be allotted to a local Government School and situated at khasra no.178, village Bojhala Tehsil Bhadra District Hanumangarh. An appropriate restraint order to prevent the private respondents from raising pacca construction on the land involved in future has also been sought for.
We have heard Mr.R.S.Choudhary, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr.Sandeep Bhandawat, Mr.Moti Singh and Mr.GR 2 Bhari, learned counsel for the respondents.
The petition discloses that the petitioners are permanent residents of village Bojhala. According to them, the respondents no.7 to 13 had encroached upon the land in question allotted to the Government Secondary School, Bojhala Tehsil Bhadra District Hanumangarh and that inspite of the repeated representations being made before the concerned public authorities, no action had been taken to remove the encroachments.
In course of the arguments, the learned counsel for the private respondents have drawn our attention to an appeal filed by the petitioner no.1 and 3 alongwith others against the respondents no.7, 11 & 12 and others before the Development Officer, Panchayat Samiti Bhadra seeking cancellation of the patta(s) granted to them (respondents) in respect of the same land. According to them (petitioners), the patta(s) could not have been granted to the respondents by the jurisdictional Panchayat Samiti. Attention of this Court has also been drawn to the order dated 15.11.2011 passed by the Administration and Establishment Standing Committee, Panchayat Samiti, Bhadra, whereby the patta
(s) granted prior to the year 1971 had been affirmed and those issued thereafter had been declared to be invalidated. According to the learned counsel for the private respondents, the revision petition against this determination is presently pending before the learned A.D.M., Nohar and thus, the instant writ petition in the 3 form of PIL is not maintainable in law.
When confronted with this, the learned counsel for the petitioners has submitted that as the jurisdictional Panchayat Samiti had no competence in law to grant patta (s), no right whatsoever in the private respondents vis-a-vis land involved has been conferred thereby and thus, interference of this Court in the instant proceeding to espouse the public cause is permissible.
Upon hearing the learned counsel for the parties and on a consideration of the materials on record, we are disinclined to sustain the contentions raised on behalf of the petitioners. The foundation of the reliefs sought for in the present proceeding being the imputation of encroachments by the private respondents on the land allotted to a Government School in question, issuance of patta (s) to them (respondents), prima facie has a nullifying effect on the cause of action for the PIL. Till the time the patta (s) issued to the private respondents is/are invalidated by a forum authorized in law, they, in our comprehension, per se cannot be branded as encroachers on the land involved. It is not denied on behalf of the petitioners that patta (s) in question in respect of the same land has been issued in favour of the respondents, though they contend that the jurisdictional Panchayat Samiti had no authority to do so.
Be that as it may, as the issue with regard to the validity of the patta (s) and that too only those issued subsequent to the year 4 1971 is pending scrutiny before the learned ADM, Nohar, we do not feel persuaded to further the instant proceeding. It is, therefore, closed.
(V.K.Mathur)J. (Amitava Roy)CJ Parmar