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Showing contexts for: ejectment execution in The Province Of Orissa And Anr. vs Durjodhan Das Gaontia And Ors. on 22 February, 1949Matching Fragments
6. If the relevant provisions of the C. P. T. Act are scrutinised the position becomes much more clear. Chapter v of that Act deals with village service tenants of whom Nariba is clearly one. Section 68 of that Act says that no village service' tenant shall be ejected from his holding except in execution of an order for ejectment passed by a Revenue Officer on some specified grounds. This section has obviously been framed with a view to prevent arbitrary ejectment of village service tenants. Only a Revenue Officer has the power to turn him out of the holding for certain well-defined grounds & his order is subject to appeal & revn. before higher Revenue authorities. At first sight this section may appear to conflict with the provisions in the wazib ul.arz which confer on the Lambardar & the Punches the right to appoint & dismiss a Nariha & deprive him of his holding. Even if there be such a conflict the provisions in the statute would obviously override any entry regarding the village customs contained in the wazib ul-atz. But I am not satisfied that there is really any conflict between the two. Both of them have to be construed together & if such a construction is adopted it will be clear that after the Lambardar & the Punches have passed an order dismissing a Nariba the actual ejectment of the Nariha from his holding should be done by the Revenue Officer Under Section 58. In fact el. (d) of Sub-section (l) of that Section specifies dismissal from office as one of the grounds for which a Revenue Officer may eject a village service tenant. Therefore, before exercising the powers under Schedule 8, the Revenue Officer has to be satisfied that the village servant has been dismissed from his office. The question arises as to the nature & extent of the enquiry that he can legally make for the purpose of so satisfying himself. It was argued that all that law permits him is to examine whether in fact the Lambardar & the Punches have dismissed the Nariha & that he has no jurisdiction to consider whether the dismissal was on proper grounds or not or else whether it was unreasonable. It is doubtless true that neither in the C. P. L. R. Act nor in the C. P. T. Act is there any provision conferring on the revenue authorities appellate jurisdiction over the action of a Lambardar & the Punches in dismissing a Nariha. Therefore, the revenue authorities cannot claim to have the right to enter into the merits of the order of dismissal, analyse the findings on facts or come to an independent finding of their own as regards the propriety or otherwise of such an order; but they have no doubt jurisdiction to enquire whether the dismissal was 'lawfull or not . It is true that in cl, (d) of sub.s. (l) of Schedule 8 the expression 'lawful" has not been inserted before the word dismissed.' But in sub.s. (l) of Schedule 6 it is clearly stated that the right of a village service tenant in his holding is lost only when he is 'lawfully dismissed.' The power of the Revenue Officer to eject a village service tenant arises only when the latter's right in his holding is lost & therefore, if subs, (l) of Section 66 is read along with cl. (d) of Sub-section (l) of Schedule 8 the reasonable construction is that in that clause also the Legislature meant that the dismissal should be lawful though they did not expressly say so. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the Revenue Officer has full jurisdiction to enquire into the lawfulness or otherwise of an order of dismissal passed by the Lambardar & the Punches. It is difficult to lay down eshausiively the various grounds which would render such dismissal 'unlawful.' Obviously substantial defects in procedure such as the failure to frame a specific charge, & the omission to give the village servant reasonable opportunity to show cause against his dismissal or any substantial defect in the constitution of the authority dismissing him such as the failure of the Lambardar to consult the Punches would be oar grounds for holding that the dismissal is unlawful. Similarly any fraud on the exercise of the power such as dismissal for some private grudge though ostensibly acting in exeroisa of the power may be a good ground. Difficulty, however, arises in deciding whether the Lambardar & the Punches are the final authority to decide what are 'due services' to be rendered by a Nariha to the villagers. The Wazib-ul arz doss not specify those due services. Apparently they are of a customary nature & the settlement authorities while allowing the customs to continue did not specify them in detail trusting to the good sense of the Lambardar & the Punches. But as the Lambardar himself is responsible to the Govt. for the proper management of the village & as he is liable to be dismissed for gross misconduct it seems obvious that any attempt by him (with the help of the Punches) to enlarge the 'due services' of a 1951 Orissa/44/45 Nariha so as to make him praotioally a private servant of the Lambardar & his favourites can be questioned by the revenue authorities while considering whether the Nariha should be ejected Under Section 88, 0. P. T. Act, The general control of the revenue authorities over the actions of the Lambardar is clearly implied in the provisions of the C P. L, R. Act & the very fact that while enacting the C. P. T. Act the Legislature thought that the power of evicting a village service tenant from his holding should be retained exclusively by the Revenue Officer indicates that the Legislature did not intend that a village service tenant should be entirely at the mercy of the Lambardar & the Punches. The pltfs.' claim of an unfecttered right to dismiss a Nariha must fail though it must also be added that the revenue officers cannot take upon themselves the functions of an appellate authority over the actions of the Lambardar & the Punches in dismissing a Nnriha.
"I am not prepared to pass any orders in this case. The whole arrangement is an anachronism & no longer workable."
When the power of dismissal is vested by law in the village official & the village officials have properly & lawfully dismissed the village servant, the revenue authorities are bound to give effect to it by ejecting the tenants from the lands subject to their jurisdiction as above stated of finding whether the dismissal is lawful. If as Sir John Dain says the arrangement is no longer workable, that can be no ground for their refusal to exercise their power of ejectment. It has been suggested in the coarse of the arguments that the wording of Section 58, C. P. Tenancy Act, leaves a discretion with the revenue officials to refuse to eject a village service tenant even if any of the grounds mentioned in the section are made out. I am not prepared to construe Section 58 as vesting a mere discretionary power in the revenue officials. The negative working of 8, 58, Sub-section (1.) is that "a village service tenant shall not be ejected from his holding except in execution of an order of ejectment on one or the other of the grounds specified" cannot be construed as vesting an overriding discretion in the revenue officer to refuse ejectment even when those grounds are made out. It is merely a prohibition against ejectment by any other machinery. If as Sir John Dain says the arrangement is an anachronism & is not workable the remedy probably lies in the hands of the revenue authorities themselves who may terminate the anachronism by enfranchising the land from the service tenure & getting other arrangements made for the service if required.