Ruldu Singh vs Financial Commissioner … on 9 January, 2009

CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009                                 :{ 1 }:

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
                 CHANDIGARH


                    DATE OF DECISION: January 09, 2009



             Ruldu Singh

                                                             .....Petitioner

                           VERSUS

             Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Punjab and others

                                                              ....Respondents



CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH

1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement?
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?



PRESENT:            Mr. Jasmail Singh Brar, Advocate,
                    for the petitioner.


                           ****

RANJIT SINGH, J.

Petitioner’s father was a Lambardar, who died on

31.8.1995. Proceedings were accordingly initiated for appointment of

new Lambardar. Collector, Bhatinda, appointed respondent No.4 as

Lambardar on 6.5.1997. Commissioner, however, accepted the

appeal and remanded the case back for re-consideration to the

Collector, who again appointed respondent No.4 as Lambardar on

24.3.1998. This order was again set-aside and the case remanded

back to Collector and this time, he appointed the petitioner as

Lambardar on 4.12.2002. When respondent No.4 filed appeal against
CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009 :{ 2 }:

this order before the Commissioner, he accepted the same and

appointed respondent No.4 as Lambardar on 15.10.2003. The

revision against the said order was dismissed by Financial

Commissioner on 14.8.2008 and now the petitioner has filed the

present writ petition to impugn the said orders, appointing respondent

No.4 as Lambardar.

Learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to detailed

order Annexure P-1 and has made reference to the observation

made by the Commissioner, which has been discussed in detail by

the Collector to point out that the petitioner is more meritorious.

However, the counsel is not giving due consideration to the fact that

the Collector, while exercising his independent discretion, had found

respondent No.4 to be more meritorious and had appointed him as

Lambardar on two occasions, when the Commissioner had interfered

with the said order. Third time, the Collector apparently has not

exercised his independent mind to assess the merit of the respective

candidates and basically was influenced by the observation made by

the Commissioner while appointing the petitioner as Lambardar. This

can be made out from order Annexure P-1, where reference is

extensively made to the observation of the Commissioner. It can,

thus, be said that the order passed by the Collector is either not on

the basis of an independent assessment of merit or is substantially

influenced by the observation made by the Commissioner. Such

order can not be taken to be free from influence/perversity and as

such, would not call for preference as generally would be the legal

position. The Commissioner has validly considered the fact that the

petitioner could not have been given preference or an added value
CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.224 OF 2009 :{ 3 }:

for being a sarbrah Lambardar. Respondent was found to be more

educated and having more land and was rightly appointed. Financial

Commissioner also found the respondent to be more meritorious

while declining to interfere in the order passed by the Commissioner.

This is not a case where choice of Collector can be said to be

independent or uninfluenced and hence, can not be given preference

or precedent in any manner. I am, thus, not inclined to interfere in the

impugned order in exercise of writ jurisdiction.

Dismissed.

January 09, 2009                                   ( RANJIT SINGH )
khurmi                                                 JUDGE