Thakar Das And Another v. The Custodian Evacuee Property, Jullundur, And Another

Kapur, J.:— This is a Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment of Harnam Singh, J., affirming an order passed by the Additional Custodian affirming a lease in favour of Govind Ram Jaggi and cancelling the order of allotment passed in favour of Firm Thakar Dass Piyare Lal.

2. On the 10th of September, 1947, Mohammed Nawab, Proprietor of Messrs Ahmed Bux and Sons, granted a lease for eleven months from the 10th September, 1947 to the 10th of August 1948, of the premises in dispute Nos. 5565 and 5565/1, situate in Sadar Bazar, Ambala, Cantonment, consisting of a house and shop, to Govind Ram Jaggi, who on the 10th of February 1948, applied for the confirmation of the lease.

3. On the 15th of November, 1948, by an order purporting to have been passed by the Financial Commissioner Mr. Thapar, the property in dispute was allotted to firm Thakar Dass Piyare Lal. The order is signed by one Mr. Balwant Singh Under Secretary to Government and says that the Financial Commissioner has allotted the whole of the premises (now) in dispute to Messrs Thakar Dass Piyare Lal, who were already in possession of No. 5565.

4. On the 11th of August, 1949, the Additional Custodian Mr. Parshotam Lal passed an order confirming the lease which had been granted in favour of Gobind Ram Jaggi and also by the same order cancelled the allotment which had been made in favour of Messrs Thakar Dass-Piyare Lal on two grounds: (1) that the allotment was made in ignorance of the proceedings which were pending before the Custodian for confirmation of the lease and (2) as the lease was being confirmed the allotment would stand cancelled. Against the order an appeal was brought to this Court and was decided by Harnam Singh, J., who, as I have said before, affirmed the order of Mr. Parshotam Lal, and against this judgment an appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent has been filed.

5. The first point taken by the learned Advocate for the appellant is that the finding of the learned Judge that he had no right of appeal is erroneous. His submission is that as a consequence of the confirmation of the lease be would be losing the rights that he has got under the allotment, which is thereby being cancelled, and he contended that be was a person aggrieved within the meaning of the term as used in suction 30 of Ordinance IX of 1949. Relying on Ex-parte Sidebotham (1850) 14 Ch. D. 458 and other rulings the learned Judge has held that he was not a person aggrieved. James, L.J, has in that case observed—

“The words ‘person aggrieved’ do not really mean a man who is disappointed of a benefit which he might have received if some other order had been made. A ‘person aggrieved’ must be a man who has suffered a legal grievance, a man against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something, or wrongfully refused him something, or wrongfully affected his title to something?”

6. The learned Advocate's submission is that this is too restricted a Page: 7meaning to be given to the words ‘person aggrieved’ and he has relied on a judgment of the Madras High Court in Chalavadi Narasimham v. Chalavadi Ramayya A.I.R 1950 Mad. 492, where an insolvent as an ‘aggrieved person’ was allowed to appeal against an order under section 68 of the insolvency Act questioning the acts of the Official Receiver. In that case Viswanatha Sastri, J., observed at p. 501—

“If there is a flagrant case of a sale by the receiver for a gross undervalue if a sale or lease is granted secretly and without public notice * * * if the property sold is so incorrectly described as to mislead purchasers into thinking that its value is negligible when in fact it is valueable, in cases like these the insolvent is an aggrieved person and would, in our opinion, have a remedy by way of an application to the Court under section 68 and an appeal under section 75, Provincial Insolvency Act. In such cases the insolvent's rights to the surplus estate or the proceeds of the estate after paying off the debts and to obtain an annulment of the adjudication or an absolute discharge under sections 41 and 42 of Act V of 1920 by payment of eight annas in the rupee, is prejudiced and the insolvent is an ‘aggrieved person’. The extreme contention of the respondent that even in such cases the insolvent has no legal grievance and has no right to complain to the Court against the act of the official receiver, would if accepted, reduce him to the position of a person who is civilitur morthus. Such, however, is not his position in the eye of law”.

7. No doubt this case and some others which were cited before us may lead one to the conclusion that in India the words ‘person aggrieved’ have been given a wider significance than in England. But the question still remains whether the appellant Firm Thakar Dass Piyare Lal are a ‘person aggrieved’ within the meaning of the words used in the section. The question is not free from difficulty. In the present case persons whose rights are adjudicated upon under section 25 of the Ordinance must necessarily be paries to the transactions which are to be confirmed and the appellants certainly are not one of those, but cases can be conceived where as a result of some order passed a person may have a grievance in regard to his legal rights. The appellants were allottees and under section 2(h) of the East Punjab Evacuee Property Administration Act, 1947, allotment has been defined to mean “the grant by the Custodian or a Rehabilitation Authority or any other person authorised by the Custodian in this behalf for a temporary right of use and occupation of an evacuee property to any person otherwise than by way of lease”. The rights of the appellants were, therefore, those of a mere licencee, which rights could have been extinguished both under section 60 of the Easements Act and if not under that section then there is an express provision in the East Punjab Evacuee Property Administration Ordinance, 1949, in section 10 by which the Custodian has been given the power to cancel leases or allotments of evacuee property; and if the Custodian does cancel any allotment the allottee has no remedy; and merely because the Custodian passes a composite order whereby be confirms a transaction made by an evacuee in favour of one person, a third person whose allotment is also cancelled by the same order even though it may be consequent upon the order of confirmation cannot make him a party aggrieved as the allottee has a mere licence which can be revoked at any time. The point of a right of appeal under section 30, as I have said before, is not free from Page: 8difficulty, but in the circumstances of this case. I would agree with the judgment of Harnarn Singn, J., that the appellants would have no right of appeal though for different reasons.

8. But even if the appellant had a right to come up in appeal, I do not think there are any merits in his appeal. There was a lease for eleven months in favour of the respondent Govind Ram Jaggi for the confirmation of which he had applied in February, 1948, and in my opinion, it is open to the Custodian to confirm the transaction even later on. The confirmation can be ex post facto. But even if that were not possible the Custodian has the power under section 9(i) of the Ordinance to give a fresh lease. This power again is not open to any one to challenge and the reasons given by the Custodian seem to me, even if the rights could be challenged, to be adequate for the grant of such a license.

9. In my opinion, therefore, there are no merits in this appeal, and I would dismiss the appeal and the respondents will have their costs of all the proceedings.

10. Weston, C.J:— I agree

11. Appeal dismissed.