[Rajasthan Colonisation Rules] Eligibility In 'Landless Category' Depends On Individual Applicant's Holdings, Land Held By Spouse Immaterial: High Court

While overturning the decisions of the Colonisation Commissioner and Board of Revenue cancelling the land allotments made to two women, the Rajasthan High Court has clarified that eligibility for the 'landless category' depends on the applicant's individual land holdings. Grant of land under Rajasthan Colonization (Allotment and Sale of the Government Land in the Indira Gandhi Canal Colony Area), Rules, 1975 should not be influenced by the extent of land owned by husbands, the bench sitting at Jodhpur added.

A single-judge bench of Justice Vinit Kumar Mathur also noted that Rule 2(1) (xiii) of the 1975 Rules which defines a 'landless person' eligible for a grant of land requires the sole examination of whether the applicant before the authority has land holdings or not. Previously, the Commissioner (Colonisation), Bikaner had cancelled land allotments already made under Rule 13-A of the 1975 Rules on the ground that both applicants did not fall within the category of 'landless persons'.

“…the eligibility of having the land or not is required to be taken note of only of the person who has applied before the authorities concerned and, therefore, for all intents and purposes, the land holdings of an individual person or the applicant were required to be taken into consideration while considering the application for grant of land under the 'landless person' category”, the court disagreed with the Commissioner's (Colonisation) decision to take into consideration the lands owned by the husbands of applicants in light of the Ceiling Act.

Court said that the law does not provide for the clubbing of lands of husband and wife while examining an application under the 'landless' category, and land properties owned by the husbands are immaterial for deciding the said applications.

The court also observed that the petitioners were rightly given priority under Rule 7 of the 1975 Rules since the proviso to Rule 7 became inapplicable by the time of land allotments made in favour of both women. The land allotments were made on 29.12.1993 & 25.08.1993 respectively whereas the proviso to Rule 7 was deleted from the Rules on 15.07.1993 itself.

The court underscored that the Commissioner should not have relied on a deleted proviso to annul the allotments made to the petitioners. The proviso to Rule 7 speaks about the priority among eligible 'landless' persons when land allotment in Stage II happens though they had originally applied for Stage-1 allotment under Rules 10 & 11.

 They might not have been allotted land due to its non-availability in Stage 1, according to which the preference among eligible 'landless' persons would be in the order of the date on which they had originally applied for the allotment of land in Stage I.

The court also opined that the Board of Revenue had not correctly exercised its revisional jurisdiction when the orders of the Commissioner (Colonisation) were assailed by the petitioners. Citing the above reasons, the court quashed the land allotment cancellation order dated 24.10.1997 and the Board of Revenue's order dated 30.06.1999.

The first and second petitioners were initially allotted 24.5 Bighas and 25 Bighas of land respectively. Later, on 03.07.1996, they received notices from the Colonisation Commissioner for allotment cancellation upon an application filed by the Tehsildar under Rule 22(3). It was also alleged by the respondent authorities that their husbands had 13 Bighas and 9 Bighas of uncommand land respectively.

According to the definition of a 'landless person' under the Rules, there shouldn't be ownership of 25 bighas of land or more.

For Petitioners: Mr. J.L. Purohit, Sr. Adv. assisted by Mr Magan Singh Gehlot, Mr Anil Kumar Singh

For Respondents: Mr. I.S. Pareek, AGC

Case Title: Smt. Raj Kanwar v. State of Rajasthan & Ors and Smt Sua Kanwar v. State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Case No: S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 182/2000 & S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 181/2000

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 43

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