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PETITIONER: Md. SHARFUDDIN

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: R.   P. SINGH AND OTHERS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 10/03/1961

BENCH: SUBBARAO, K. BENCH: SUBBARAO, K. DAYAL, RAGHUBAR MUDHOLKAR, J.R.

CITATION:  1961 AIR 1312            1962 SCR  (1) 239

ACT: Appeal--Person  aggrieved--Property held to be  not  evacuee property--Whether  Assistant  Custodian  can  Prefer  appeal against order--Administration of Evacuee Property Act,  1950 (31 of 1950), S. 24(1)(a).

HEADNOTE: The  Assistant Custodian, Giridih, passed an  order  holding that  the  properties  of the  appellant  were  not  evacuee properties.   The  Custodian, acting under S. 26(1)  of  the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, called for the records of the case, and after hearing the appellant dropped the  proceedings.   Subsequently, the  Assistant  Custodian, Head-quarters,  Patna, filed an appeal before the  Custodian under  S.  24(1)(a)  of the Act, against the  order  of  the Assistant  Custodian,  Giridih.   In  appeal  the  Custodian declared the shares of the brothers of the appellant in  the property to be evacuee property and referred the matter  for separation of their shares.  The appellant contended that no appeal  lay  under  S.  24(1)(a)  at  the  instance  of  the Assistant Custodian, Head-quarters. Held,  that  the appeal filed by  the  Assistant  Custodian, Headquarters  was  incompetent.   The  Assistant  Custodian, Headquarters,  was  not  a  ’person  aggrieved’  within  the meaning  of S. 24 of the Act, by the order of the  Assistant Custodian, Giridih, and he could not prefer an appeal. Ebrahim Aboobakar v. Custodian-General of Evacuee  Property, [1952] S.C.R. 696, distinguished.

JUDGMENT: CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 458 of 1958. Appeal  by special leave from the judgment and decree  dated September 3, 1956, of the Patna High Court in M. J. No.  603 of 1955. M.   K. Ramaraurthi, R. K. Garg, S. C. Agarwal and D.   P. Singh, for the appellant. R. C. Prasad, for the respondents. 1961.  March 10.  The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SUBBA  RAO,  J.--This appeal by special  leave  is  directed

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against  the order of the High Court of Judicature at  Patna dismissing the application filed by the 240 appellant  under Art. 226 of the Constitution to  quash  the order  dated  August 4, 1955, passed by Shri  R.  P.  Singh, Custodian of Evacuee Property, Bihar. The facts relevant to the question raised in this appeal may be  briefly stated.  On information supplied by  one  Qurban Ahmad,  the  Assistant Custodian, Giridih, issued  a  notice under  s.  7(1) of the Administration of   Evacuee  property Act, 1950 (Act 31 of 1950), (hereinafter called the Act), to the appellant to show    cause  why  he should  not  declare holdings Nos. 326,  774 and 654 in his possession as evacuee properties. The  Assistant  Custodian, after  making  the necessary inquiry, held that the said holdings were  evacuee properties.   The appellant filed a revision petition  under s.  26  of  the Act against the said  order  to  the  Deputy Custodian,  Hazaribagh,  who  set aside  the  order  of  the Assistant  Custodian  and  remanded the matter  to  him  for disposal  in  accordance with law.  On April 26,  1954,  the Assistant  Custodian,  Giridih, on a  consideration  of  the evidence  placed before him, held that the  said  properties were not evacuee properties, and on that finding he released them.   Thereafter, the Custodian, acting under s. 26(1)  of the  Act,  called  for the records of the  case  and,  after hearing the appellant, by his order dated January 27,  1955, dropped   the  proceedings.   On  February  22,  1955,   the Assistant  Custodian, Head-quarters, Patna filed  an  appeal before the Custodian, under s. 24(1)(a) of the Act,  against the  order of the Assistant Custodian, Giridih, dated  April 26,  1954,  releasing  the holdings of  the  appellant.   On August  4,  1955, the Custodian set aside the order  of  the Assistant Custodian, Giridih, and declared the shares of the brothers  of  the appellant in the holdings  to  be  evacuee properties  and  referred  the  matter  to  the  appropriate authority for the separation of their interest.  Thereafter, the  appellant filed an application to the High Court  under Art.  226 of the Constitution to quash the said  order,  but that was dismissed.  Hence the appeal. Though  many  questions were raised before the  High  Court, only the following four questions were pressed before us  by learned counsel for the appellant 241 (1)  No  appeal  lay  to the Custodian  from  the  order  of the  Assistant Custodian, Giridih,  at the instance of the Assistant  Custodian, Headquarters, Patna. (2) Under s.  7-A of the Act the Custodian has no power after May 7, 1954,  to declare   any  property  to  be  evacuee   property   unless proceedings are pending on the said date for declaring  such property as evacuee property, and that in the present  case, as  the appeal against the order of the Assistant  Custodian was filed only on February 22, 1955, no proceeding was pend- ing  on  the prescribed date and, therefore,  the  Custodian illegally  made  the order in direct  contravention  of  the provisions  of  B. 7-A of the Act. (3) The  Custodian  acted perversely  in condoning the delay in filing the  appeal  to him without assigning any reasons. (4) The notice issued  to the  appellant under s. 7(1) of the Act was  defective  and, therefore, the proceedings taken pursuant thereto were void. The  appellant  lost before the High Court on all  the  four points.  Though learned counsel for the appellant raised all the  four contentions before us, he seriously  pressed  only the first two contentions. To   appreciate   the  first  contention  and  to   give   a satisfactory  answer  thereto,  it  would  be  necessary  to

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consider  the scope of the relevant provisions of  the  Act. Section  2(c) defines "Custodian" to mean the Custodian  for the State and to include any Additional, Deputy or Assistant Custodian  of  evacuee property in that  State.   Section  6 authorises the Central Government to appoint for any State a Custodian  and  as  many  Additional,  Deputy  or  Assistant Custodians  of Evacuee Property as may be necessary for  the purpose  of discharging the duties imposed on the  Custodian by  or  under the Act.  By sub-s. (3) of that  section,  the Additional,  Deputy  and  Assistant  Custodians  of  Evacuee Property  shall discharge the duties imposed on them  by  or under the Act under the general superintendence and  control of  the Custodian of the State, but the  Central  Government may,   by  general  or  special  order,  provide   for   the distribution  of  work  among  them.   The  said  provisions indicate that whatever the designations of the said officers be they are 242 all  Custodians within the definition of "Custodian" in  the Act,   though  for  convenience  their  duties  are   either statutorily  or  administratively  defined.  Under  s.  7  a Custodian-it may be noted that the Custodian may be any  one of  the  aforesaid categories-if he is of opinion  that  any property is evacuee property within the meaning of the  Act, he  may,  after causing notice thereof to be given  in  such manner  as may be prescribed to the persons interested,  and after   holding  such  inquiry  into  the  matter   as   the circumstances  of the case permit, pass an  order  declaring any  such  property  to be  evacuee  property.   Sub-s.  (3) thereof  enjoins on him the duty to publish in the  Official Gazette  all  properties  declared  by  him  to  be  evacuee properties.  After such declaration the said properties vest in  the  Custodian for the State.  Section  9  empowers  the Custodian  to take possession of evacuee property vested  in him.   Section  10 confers powers on the Custodian  to  take such measures as he considers necessary or expedient for the purposes of securing, administering, preserving and managing any  property.   Section 24 confers a right  on  any  person aggrieved by an order made under s. 7 to prefer an appeal to the Custodian where the original order has been passed by  a Deputy or Assistant Custodian and the amount or value of the property  which is the subject-matter of the order does  not exceed two thousand rupees, and to the Custodian-General  in any other case.  Section 26, which was deleted from the  Act by  s.  8  of  Act  91  of  1956,  conferred  a   revisional jurisdiction  on  the  Custodian,  Additional  Custodian  or Authorized   Deputy   Custodian  against   the   orders   of subordinate  officers.  Section 27 gives to  the  Custodian- General a plenary power of revision to correct the orders of any  Custodian  at any time.  The scheme  of  the  foregoing provisions  may  be  briefly stated thus:  A  Custodian,  as defined  in the Act, after necessary inquiry, may declare  a property  to  be evacuee property; on such  declaration  the property  vests  in him; after such vesting,  the  Custodian manages  the  said  property;  if  a  Custodian  wrongly  or illegally  declares a property to be evacuee  property,  the person aggrieved by his 243 order  can  prefer an appeal to  the  appropriate  authority prescribed  under  s. 24; the Custodian  or  the  Custodian. General, as the case may be, in appropriate cases, can also, in  exercise of his revisional jurisdiction, set aside  that order;  if  a Custodian illegally or improperly  releases  a property  on the ground that it is not evacuee property,  it is  liable to be revised by the Custodian or the  Custodian-

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General,  as  the case may be, under s. 26 or s. 27  of  the Act. Learned counsel for the respondents contends that the  words "any   person  aggrieved"  under  s.  25  of  the  Act   are comprehensive enough to include a Custodian and,  therefore, a  Custodian  can  prefer an appeal against an  order  of  a Custodian  releasing  properties  under s.  7  of  the  Act. Realizing  that  an  obvious  anomaly  is  implicit  in  the argument,  learned  counsel concedes that an appeal  can  be filed only by a Custodian other than the Custodian who  made the  order  releasing the properties.  It is said  that  the Central  Government may, under s. 6 of the Act, provide  for the  distribution  of  work among  the  various  Custodians, namely, Additional, Deputy and Assistant Custodians, and  in such  allocation the power to inquire whether a property  is an  evacuee  property  or  not may be  confer.  red  on  one Custodian  and the power to manage it on another, and  that, in that event, the Custodian on whom the power to manage  is conferred  will be a person aggrieved within the meaning  of s.  24  of  the  Act.  In our  View  this  argument  is  not consistent  with  the  scheme of the Act.   Though  for  the purpose   of   convenience   of   management   or   judicial determination   of  disputes  the  Act  provides   different categories  of  Custodians,  all of  them  fall  within  the definition  of  "Custodian"  in the Act.   The  Act  further provides a hierarchy of tribunals under the  superintendence and control of the Custodian-General.  It would be anomalous were  it to be held that a Custodian could prefer an  appeal against  the  order  of  a  Custodian.   The  Act  does  not contemplate  one  officer  preferring  appeals  against  the orders  of  another officer If an Assistant Custodian  or  a Custodian  went wrong in the matter of declaring a  property to be an evacuee property, the 244 Act provides that the Custodian or the CustodianGeneral,  as the  case  may be, before 1956,  and  the  Custodian-General thereafter,  may set right the wrong.  In the  premises  the words  "any person aggrieved" in s. 24 of the Act  can  only mean  a  person whose properties have been  declared  to  be evacuee  properties by the Custodian, or a person who  moved the Custodian to get the properties so declared or any other such aggrieved person.  The words "any person aggrieved"  in the  context  of  the Act cannot include  any  Custodian  as defined in the Act. Strong reliance is placed upon the decision of this Court in Ebrahim  Aboobaker v. Custodian-General of Evacuee  Property (1)  in  support of the contention of the  respondents.   In that case, on information supplied by one Tek Chand  Dolwani to the Additional Custodian of Evacuee Property, the  latter started    proceedings    under    the    Bombay    Evacuees (Administration   of  Property)  Act,  1949,   against   one Aboobaker.   The Additional Custodian, after  recording  the statement  of Aboobaker and examining the evidence  produced by  Tek Chand Dolwani, held that the said Aboobaker was  not an  evacuee.  Tek Chand Dolwani filed an appeal against  the said  order  to the Custodian-General of India’ One  of  the questions raised was whether the said Tek Chand Dolwani  was a person aggrieved by the order of the Additional  Custodian within  the meaning of s. 24 of the Central Ordinance  XXVII of 1949, and was entitled to appeal against the said  order. This Court held that the said person was a person  aggrieved within the meaning of the said section.  It was provided  in rule  5(5)  of the rules made under the Ordinance  that  any person  or persons claiming to be interested in the  inquiry or in the property being declared as evacuee property, might

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file  a written statement in reply to the written  statement filed  by  the persons interested in the  property  claiming that  the  property  should not be declared  as  an  evacuee property; and that the Custodian should proceed. to hear the evidence,  if any, which the party appearing to  show  cause might produce and also the evidence which the party claiming to be interested as mentioned (1)  [1952] S.C.R. 696. 245 above  might  adduce.  The rule, therefore,  authorized  the Additional Custodian to adjudicate between the person moving the Custodian to declare a property as evacuee property  and the  person  denying that fact In that context,  this  Court held  that  the  person moving the Custodian  was  a  person aggrieved within the meaning of s. 24.  This decision or the decisions relied upon by this Court in the aforesaid case in coming  to  the  said conclusion are  not  relevant  to  the present enquiry.  Where a statute or rules framed thereunder provide for a dispute between two parties to be decided by a tribunal, it is implicit in that provision that the defeated party  is  one  aggrieved by that decision.   But  the  same cannot be said of a Custodian and the party in whose  favour he  gave a decision; nor can another subordinate officer  of the  Custodian,  who  made  the  decision  and  who  has  no statutory duty to appear before the Custodian to put forward the  case  of  the department or lead  evidence  in  support thereof,  be  equated to a party in a lis.   We,  therefore, bold,  having  regard  to the scheme of the  Act,  that  the Assistant  Custodian, Headquarters, Patna, is not  a  person aggrieved  within  the  meaning of s. 24 of  the  Act.   The appeal to the Custodian, therefore, was not competent. In  this  view,  the second question does  not  fall  to  be considered.   In the result, the order of the High Court  is set aside and we direct the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Custodian of Evacuee Property  Bihar, dated  April  26,  1954  setting  aside  the  order  of  the Assistant  Custodian, Giridih, releasing the  holdings  Nos. 326, 774 and 654 in Giridih belonging to the appellant.  The appeal is allowed with costs throughout.                                      Appeal allowed. 246