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TMI Blog1958 (12) TMI 52X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of 1950, which came into force on November 6, 1950, on the date on which it was first published in the Punjab Government Gazette. The Act prescribed a limit of one hundred standard acres of land (equivalent to two hundred ordinary acres) which could be held by a land-owner for his self-cultivation ; and it was termed permissible limit - (section 2(3)). Any land-owner having land in excess of the permissible limit , was authorized by section 3 to select for self-cultivation , land out of the entire area held by him in the State of Punjab, as land-owner, and reserve it for his own use to the extent of the permissible limit . This right of reservation had to be exercised, first, in respect of land in his self-cultivation; and if the extent of such land fell short of the permissible limit , he could, under section 4, make up the deficiency by ejecting tenants under him in respect of such lands as fell within his reserved area. Section 5 fixed the minimum period of tenancy as four years, subject to certain exceptions set out in section 6. These were some of the salient features of the Act of 1950, which itself was amended by the Punjab Tenants (Security of Tenure) Act (Punj. V of 1951), ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he permissible area . Section 10-A authorizes the State Government or any officer empowered by it in this behalf, to utilize any surplus area for re-settlement of tenants ejected or to be ejected under the provisions of section 9(i). But a tenant inducted on to such surplus area , holds the land under the land-owner, who, thus, becomes entitled to receipt of rent from the tenant. Section 12 lays down the maximum rent payable by a tenant. Section 17 recognizes the rights of certain tenants to pre-empt sales or fore-closure of land. Section 18, which formed the subject-matter of the most vehement attack on behalf of the petitioners, confers upon the tenants of the description given in the several clauses of the Act, the right to purchase from the land-owner the land held by them, subject to certain exceptions, and subject to the payment in a lump sum or in six monthly installments not exceeding ten, of the purchase-price to be determined in accordance with clauses (2) and (3) of section 18. Section 23 invalidates any decree or order of any court or authority, or a notice of ejectment, which is not consistent with the provisions of the Act. Thus, the Act seeks to limit the area which ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... so as to modify the landlord's rights in land, and correspondingly, to expand the tenant's rights therein. Each of the expressions rights in or over land and land tenures , is comprehensive enough to take in measures of reforms of land tenures, limiting the extent of land in cultivating possession of the land-owner, and thus, releasing larger areas of land to be made available for cultivation by tenants. 7. Counsel for some of the petitioners who challenged the legislative competence of the State Legislature, were hard put to it to enunciate any easily appreciable grounds of attack against Entry 18 in List II of the Seventh Schedule. It was baldly argued that Entry 18 aforesaid, was not intended to authorize legislation which had the effect of limiting the area of land which could be directly held by a proprietor or a land-owner. It is difficult to see why the amplitude of the words rights in or over land should be cut down in the way suggested in this argument. A similar argument was advanced in the case of The United Provinces v. Mst. Atiqa Begum [1940] F.C.R. 110. In that case, the United Provinces Regularization of Remissions Act, 1938 (U.P. XIV of 1938), was challenged ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ciples, receive the widest construction, unless, for some reasons, it is cut down either by the terms of that item itself, or by other parts of the Constitution, which have, naturally, to be read as a whole; and then proceeded to make the following very significant observations :- As to item 21, land , the governing word, is followed by the rest of the item, which goes on to say, 'that is to say'. These words introduce the most general concept - 'rights in or over land'. 'Rights in land' must include general rights like full ownership, or leasehold or all such rights. 'Rights over land' would include easements or other collateral rights, whatever form they might take. Then follow words which are not words of limitation but of explanation or illustration, giving instances which may furnish a clue for particular matters : thus there are the words 'relation of landlord and tenant, and collection' of rents . 9. Thus, their Lordships concluded that the Item 21 relating to land, would include mortgages as an incidental and ancillary subject. 10. Another branch of the same argument was that Entry 18 could not cover the determination of the relation ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ucial words which must govern this part of the controversy, are the words the extinguishment or modification of any such rights ; that is to say, we have to determine whether or not the impugned Act provides for the extinguishment or modification of any rights in estates . Article 31A(2) defines what the expression estate used in Article 31A means. According to that definition, the expression estate shall, in relation to any local area, have the same meaning as that expression or its local equivalent has in the existing law relating to land tenures in force in that area, and shall also include any jagir, inam or Muafi or other similar grant and in the States of Madras and Kerala, any janmam right . It is common ground that we have to turn to the definition of an estate, as contained in the Punjab Land-Revenue Act XVII of 1887. Section 3(1) of that Act has the following definition :- (1) estate means any area - (a) for which a separate record-of-rights has been made; or (b) which has been separately assessed to land revenue, or would have been so assessed if the land revenue had not been released, compounded for or redeemed; or (c) which the (State) Government may, by general rule o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hts in an estate may be either quantitative or qualitative. That is to say, rights in an estate may be held by persons having different qualities of rights in lands constituting an estate, as a result of sub-infeudation. Generally speaking and omitting all references to different kinds of land tenures prevailing in different parts of India, it may be said that at the apex of the pyramid, stands the State. Under the State, a large number of persons variously called proprietors, zamindars, malguzars, inamdars and jagirdars, etc., hold parcels of land, subject to the payment of land revenue designated as peshkash, quit-rent or malguzari, etc., representing the Government demands by way of land-tax out of the usufruct of the land constituting an estate, except where Government demands had been excused in whole or in part by way of reward for service rendered to the State in the past, or to be rendered in the future. An estate, thus, is an area of land which is a unit of revenue assessment, and which is separately entered in the Land Revenue Collector's register of revenue-paying or revenue-free estates. A single estate, unless governed by the Rule of Primogeniture, would, in course ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... their holding. The tenant holding under a raiyat is known as an under-raiyat, and an under-raiyat may induct a tenant under himself, and he will be an under-raiyat of the second degree. Thus, in each grade of holders of land, in the process of sub-infeudation described above, the holder is a tenant under his superior holder, the landlord and also the landlord of the holder directly holding under him. Thus, in Eastern India, the interest of intermediaries between the proprietor of an estate at the top and the actual tiller of the soil at the bottom, is known as that of a tenure-holder , and the interest of tenants other than tenure-holders, is given the generic name of a holding . A holding in Eastern India, thus, indicates the interest of the actual tiller of the soil - raiyat or under-raiyat - unlike the holding in Punjab where, as indicated above, its signifies the interest of the holder of a share in an estate. Thus, holdings in Punjab are vertical divisions of an estate; whereas in Eastern India, they represent a horizontal division, connoting a lesser quality of an estate in land than the interest of a tenure-holder in his tenure, or of a land-owner in his estate or portion o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... )(a). Soon after the coming into effect of the Constitution, the different States in India embarked upon a scheme of legislation for reforming the system of land-holding, so as (1) to eliminate the intermediaries, that is to say, those who hold interest in land in between the State at the apex and the actual tillers of the soil - in other words, to abolish the class of rent-receivers, and (2) to create a large body of small land-holders who have a permanent stake in the land, and who are, therefore, interested in making the best use of it. As the connotation of the term estate was different in different parts of the country, the expression estate described in clause (2) of Article 31A, has been so broadly defined as to cover all estates in the country, and to cover all possible kinds of rights in estates, as shown by sub-clause (b) of clause (2) of Article 31A, which is in these terms :- (b) the expression rights , in relation to estate, shall include any rights vesting in a proprietor, sub-proprietor, under proprietor, tenure-holder (raiyat, under-raiyat) or other intermediary and any rights or privileges in respect of land revenue. 16. The expression rights in relation to an esta ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pinion, there is no substance in this contention, because they must be attributed full knowledge of the legal maxim that the greater contains the less - Omne Majus continet in se minus. In this connection, our attention was invited to the decision of a Full Bench of the Punjab High Court in the case of State of Punjab v. S. Kehar Singh (1958) 60 P.L.R. 461, to the effect that a holding being a part of an estate, was not within the purview of Article 31A of the constitution. In this connection, it is necessary to state the conflict of views in that High Court itself. In the case of Bhagirath Ram Chand v. State of Punjab, the validity of the very Act impugned before us, was challenged on grounds based upon Articles 14, 19 and 31 of the Constitution. The learned Judges constituting the Full Bench, unanimously held that the impugned Act did not infringe those provisions of the Constitution, and the restrictions on the right of land-holding, imposed by the Act, were reasonable, and that the classification did not exceed the permissible limit. But they also held that the Act was saved by Article 31A of the Constitution, which applied equally to an entire estate or to a portion thereof. B ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Constitution thought of abolishing only intermediaries in respect of an area constitution one entire estate but not of a portion thereof ? On the other hand, as indicated above, they have used the expression estate in an all-inclusive sense. They have not stopped at that; they have also added the words or any rights therein . The expression rights in relation to an estate again has been used in a very comprehensive sense of including not only the interests of proprietors or sub-proprietors but also of lower grade tenants, like raiyats or under-raiyats, and then they added, by way of further emphasizing their intention, the expression other intermediary , thus, clearly showing that the enumeration of intermediaries was only illustrative and not exhaustive. If the makers of the Constitution have, thus, shown their intention of saving all laws of agrarian reform, dealing with the rights of intermediaries, whatever their denomination may be, in our opinion, no good reasons have been adduced in support of the view that portions or shares in an estate are not within the sweep of the expression or any rights therein . A recent decision of this Court in the case of Ram Narain Medhi v. Th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... wholly dissimilar to those of the Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, XLII of 1950, which was the subject-matter of the challenge in the case then before this Court. This Court held, on a construction of the provisions of that Act, that they only suspended the right of management but did not amount to any extinguishment or modification of any proprietary rights in an estate. The provisions of the Act then under consideration of this Court, have absolutely no resemblance to those of the Act now before us, and it is impossible to put a similar interpretation on these provisions. In the recent decision of this Court (not yet reported (Since reported as Sri. Ram Narain Medhi v. The State of Bombay, 1959] Supp. (1) S.C.R. 489, this Court had been invited to apply the observations of this Court referred to above, to the provisions of the Bombay Act. It was pointed out in that case that those observations of Mahajan, J. (as he then was), must be read as limited to an Act which only brings about a suspension of the right of management of an estate, and could not be extended to the provisions of an Act which either extinguishes or modifies certain rights of a proprietor in an estate or a p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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