Appeal No 27 of 1960 WITH Civil Appeals Nos
574 92 411 and 285 of 1960 351 of 1959 and Petitions Nos 20 and 106 of 1960
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated August 6 1957 of the Patna High Court in M J C No 57 of 1956
Lal Narayan Sinha and section P Varma for the appellants in C A No 27 of 1960
D Goburdhan for respondents Nos 1 to 7
K K Sinha for the appellant in C A No 574 of 1960
D P Singh for the respondent
D P Singh for the appellants in C A No 92 of 1960
D Goburdhan for the respondents
R C Prasad for the appellants in C A No 411 of 1960
L K Jha section K Jha and K K Sinha for the respondents
section P Varma for the appellants in C A No 285 of 1960
L K Jha B K Garg and section C Agarwal for the respondent
section P Varma for the appellant in C A No 351 of 1959
R K Garg and section C Agarwala for the respondents
Tarkeshwar Dayal K K Sinha and R C Prasad for the petitioners in Petition No 20 of 1960
Lal Narayan Sinha and section P Varma for respondent No 1
R K Garg and section C Agarwala for the petitioner in Petition No 106 of 1960
section P Varma for respondent No 1
384 1961
April 25
The judgment of the Court was delivered by DAS GUPTA J
The common question which arises for decision in this group of cases is as regards the validity of the Bihar Act No XVI of 1959 Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act 1959 in so far as it amends with retrospective effect sections 4 and 6 of the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950 to be indicated later and inserts the new sections section 7B and section 7C in that Act
It appears that sometime after the Bihar Land Reforms Act became law and action was taken under section 3 thereof by the State Government issuing notifications declaring that the estates or tenures of proprietors or tenure holders specified in the noti fications had passed to and become vested in the State the Revenue authorities started interfering with the rights of those ex proprietors and ex tenureholders to hold Melas on lands of which they were thereafter in occupation as occupancy raiyats under the State and started settling rights to realise tolls from such Melas on behalf of the State Government
Aggrieved by this action taken by the Revenue authorities on behalf of the State Government applications were made by several of these erstwhile intermediaries now occupancy raiyats to the High Court of Patna for writs restraining the Government and its officers from such interference with their rights
Five such applications have given rise to the five appeals which are numbered as C A No 351 of 1959 C A No 27 of 1960 C A No 92 of 1960 C A No 285 of 1960 and C A No 411 of 1960
The High Court held that in view of the provisions of section 6 of the Bihar Land Reforms Act before its amendment and the fact that the provisions made in section 4a of the Act about the consequences that would ensue on the vesting of an estate or tenure in the State were subject to the provisions of section 6 the State had no right to hold Melas on the Bakasht lands of the ex intermediaries now occupancy raiyats
Accordingly the High Court allowed the applications and issued writs as prayed for
Against these orders of the High Court the State of Bihar and its officers have preferred the 385 five appeals mentioned above after obtaining special leave from this Court
Some time after special leave was obtained by these appellants the Bihar Legislature enacted in 1959 the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act 1959 Bihar Act XVI of 1959
This Act amended inter alia section 4 cl
b of the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950 by adding the word Mela after the words jalkars hats and bazars and by omitting the words subject to the subsequent provisions of this Chapter in cl
a of section 4
It also amended section 6 of the 1950 Act by substituting for the words Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act the words subject to the provisions of sections 7A and 7B
Of these section 7B provides that Where on any land deemed to be settled with the intermediary under the provisions of section 5 section 6 or section 7 a Mela was being held by the intermediary at any time within 3 years of the date of vesting the right to hold such Mela on such land shall with effect from such date vest in the State and notwithstanding anything contained in any law the State shall have and the intermediary shall not except with the consent of the State Government have the right to hold such Mela on such land or to do anything which may prejudicially affect such Mela
Section 7C contains provisions as regards settlement of hats bazars or melas referred to in section 7A and section 7B and provides inter alia that settlements will be made with the outgoing intermediary or his heir after application is received from him and if there are several of them who apply for settlement with the most suitable of them
The Amending Act made the amendments mentioned above except the insertion of a 7C retrospective with effect from the date of enactment of the parent Act
The Amending Act had already been passed when several other applications under article 226 of the Constitution for similar relief against the interference by the Government with the intermediaries  right to hold Melas came up for consideration before the High Court
The High Court rejected these applicants  attack against the validity of the Amending Act and held that in view of the provisions 386 now made the applicants were not entitled to any relief
Civil Appeal No 574 of 1960 has been preferred by one of such applicants on a certificate granted by the High Court
The two applications under article 32 of the Constitution were filed in this Court for writs of mandamus against the State of Bihar and its officers restraining them from interfering with the applicant s right to hold melas on their lands
Both of these were filed after the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act 1959 had become law
It is obvious that if the Amending Act is valid legislation in so far as it amends with retrospective effect section 4 and section 6 of the 1950 Act as mentioned above and inserts section 7B the ex intermediaries have not and the State has the right to hold melas on the Bakasht lands
The main question therefore is whether this is a valid legislation
To answer this question we have to examine in the first place whether the Bihar Legislature which enacted the Amending Act had on that date the legislative competence under article 246 of the Constitution to do so and secondly whether the law was void because of the provisions of article 13 of the Constitution
The Amending legislation was clearly within Item 42 of the Concurrent List being a law as regards acquisition of property
Mr Tarkeshwar Dayal who appeared on behalf of one of the ex intermediaries submitted that this was really not a matter of land reform the purpose of the Amending legislation being only to augment the revenue of the State
It is true that the law by taking the right to hold melas from certain persons and giving it to the State is likely to augment the revenues of the State
It may well be that this object of augmenting the revenues was one of the main purposes behind the Amending legislation
That however is no reason to think that this legislation is not also concerned with land reform
It is however unnecessary for us to consider this question further for whether it is a law as regards land reform or not it is clearly and entirely as regards acquisition of property
The question of the legislature having attempted legislation not within 387 its competence by putting it into the guise of legislation within its competence does not even arise
The conclusion that necessarily follows is that the amending legislation was within the legislative competence of the Bihar Legislature under article 246 of the Constitution
This brings us to the main question in controversy viz whether the amending legislation is void on the ground that it violates articles 31 19 and 14 of the Constitution
A complete answer to this question is furnished in favour of the State if this is a law within the saving provisions of article 31A article 31A was enacted in the Constitution by the Constitution First Amendment Act with retrospective effect from the commencement of the Constitution
It was further amended by the Constitution Fourth Amendment Act also with retrospective effect from the date of the commencement of the Constitution
This Article provides inter alia that notwithstanding anything contained in article 13 no law providing for the acquisition by the State of any estate or of any rights therein   shall be deemed to be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by articles 19 31 and 14 of the Constitution
Is the amending legislation a law providing for the acquisition by the State of any estate or of any rights therein Two arguments have been advanced on behalf of the ex intermediaries to convince us that it is not such a law
The first argument is that what the amending legislation provides for is not acquisition at all within the meaning of article 31A as it is not acquisition for a public purpose
It has been urged that the purpose is a mere augmentation of revenue
It does not appear to us that when the right of holding the Mela is taken over by the State the only purpose is the augmentation of revenue
There is scope for thinking that the legislature believed that melas would be better run and be more in the interests of the general public when run by the State than when they are left without control in the hands of private individuals with whom the profit motive is 388 likely to be the sole guiding principle
It is unnecessary however to answer this question for in our opinion a law may be a law providing for acquisition even though the purpose behind the acquisition is not a public purpose
It is important to notice that the Constitution Fourth Amendment Act made important alterations in article 31 also
One of the amendments of article 31 was that clause 2 now provides that no property shall be compulsorily acquired 1 save for a public purpose and 2 save by authority of a law which contains provisions for compensation for the property acquired and either fixes the amount of compensation or specifies the principles on which and the manner in which the compensation is to be determined and given
Then article 31 A provides inter alia that a law providing for acquisition will not be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with or takes away or abridges a right conferred by article 31
Reading the two articles together as they stand after the fourth amendment of the Constitution it becomes obvious that when article 31A speaks of a law of acquisition it contemplates a law which may be for acquisition though not for a public purpose and lays down that even though this will be in violation of the fundamental right guaranteed by the first part of article 312 the law will not be void because of such violation
The question whether the validity of a law for compulsory acquisition of property by the State can be challenged on the ground that the acquisition is not for a public purpose bad to be considered by this Court even before the amendment of article 312 as mentioned above in The State of Bihar vs Sir Kameshwar Singh 1
article 312 as it then stood did not in so many words provide that no acquisition can be made save for a public purpose but it was argued on behalf of the State that such a provision was implicit in the words of article 312
This argument was rejected by Mahajan and Chandrasekhara Aiyar JJ but it was accepted by Patanjali Sastri C J and Das J both of whom held that the requirement of public 1 389 purpose being a condition for compulsory acquisition laid down by article 312 the law was saved in spite of the violation of such condition by article 314 and also article 31A Mukherjea J also said that the requirement of public purpose was a condition implied in the provisions of article 312
His Lordship then added For my part I would be prepared to assume that cl
4 of article 31 relates to everything that is provided for in clause 2 either in express terms or impliedly and consequently the question of the existence of a public purpose does not come within the purview of an inquiry in the present case
 It was in this state of judicial opinion that article 312 was amended by the Constitution Fourth Amendment Act as mentioned above and the requirement of public purpose was expressly made a condition for compulsory acquisition by the State
The basis for the argument that the question whether there was a public purpose or not is open to judicial review in spite of article 31A has therefore disappeared
It is worth noticing in this connection that in Sir Kameshwar Singh s case1 the argument that quite apart from anything in article 312 as it then stood no law of acquisition could be made except for a public purpose was sought to be reinforced by the words in Item 36 of the State List and Item 42 of the Concurrent List
These items read as follows 36
Acquisition or requisitioning of property except for the purposes of the Union subject to the provisions of entry 42 of List Ill 42
Principles on which compensation for property acquired or requisitioned for the purposes of the Union or of a State or for any other public purpose is to be determined and the form and the manner in which such compensation is to be given
 The argument on the basis of these entries was that the State legislatures had no power to make a law for acquisition of property without fulfilling  the condition of public purpose
The Constitution Seventh Amendment Act which came into force on the 1st 1 50 390 day of November 1956 deleted Entry 36 of the State List and substituted for the former phraseology of Item 42 of the Concurrent List the words acquisition and requisition of property
It is quite clear that after its amendment the legislative list permits the State legislature to enact a law of acquisition even without a public purpose and that the only obstacle to such a law being enacted without a public purpose is the provisions of article 312
That obstacle also disappears if the law in question is one within article 31 A
It was next contended that the acquisition of the right to hold the Mela for which the amending Act provides is not acquisition in any case of rights in any estate within the meaning of article 31A as defined in cl
2b of the same Article
It was argued that this definition includes only rights of persons who are intermediaries and unless the raiyat whose rights are being acquired is an intermediary that is a person between the State and the tiller of the soil his rights are not rights within the definition of rights in relation to an estate and consequently a law providing for acquisition of the rights of such a raiyat is not a law within the saving provisions of article 31A
It is pointed out that on the date the Amending Act was passed the ex intermediaries had ceased to exist as intermediaries and had become occupancy raiyats under section 6 of the parent Act
What were being acquired therefore it is argued were not rights of intermediaries but rights of raiyats who had ceased to be intermediaries
It has to be noticed that the impugned provisions amending section 4 and section 6 and section 7b have been given retrospective effect so that the parent Act of 1950 has to be read as containing on the very date of its enactment provisions in these sections not as originally enacted but as they stood after the amendment of 1959
In deciding whether rights of raiyats were being acquired or not we have to forget what happened in consequence of the unmended section 6
Projecting ourselves to the date September 25 1950 when the President s assent to the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950 was published in the 391 Gazette and reading the Act as containing section 4 and section 6 as amended and also section 7b it cannot but be held that what were being acquired by means of these provisions of the amending legislation giving retrospective effect were certain rights of the intermediaries
These intermediaries had not on September 25 1950 ceased to be intermediaries and the fact that under the unmended provisions of section 6 they later on became occupancy raiyats should not be allowed to confuse the fact that the acquisition of certain properties by the amending legislation being itself with effect from September 25 1950 what was being provided for was acquisition of intermediaries  rights
Even if it be assumed that what the amending legislation provided for was the acquisition of raiyats  rights there is no justification for holding that these rights were not rights in any estate within the definition of el 2 of article 31A Clause 2b is in these words the expression rights  in relation to an estate shall include any rights vesting in a proprietor sub proprietor under proprietor tenure holder ralyat under raiyat or other intermediary and any rights or privileges in respect of land revenue
 The contention on behalf of the ex intermediaries is that the rights of raiyats who are not intermediaries in the sense of being middlemen between the State and the tiller of the soil are not within this definition
This contention does not however stand a moment s scrutiny for the simple reason that it is well known that ordinarily at least a raiyat or an under raiyat is not a person who can be called an intermediary
It is reasonable to think that the word raiyatwas used in its ordinary well accepted sense of the person who holds the land under the proprietor or a tenure holder for the purpose of cultivation and the word under raiyat used in the equally well accepted and ordinary sense of a person who holds land under a raiyat for the purpose of cultivation
 It is necessary to remember in this 392 connection that article 31A as first enacted by the Con stitution First Amendment Act did not contain these words raivat under raiyat and that after the First Amendment the definition ran thus the expression rights  in relation to an estate shall include any rights vesting in a proprietor sub proprietor under proprietor tenure holder or other intermediary and any rights or privileges in respect of land revenue
 It was the Fourth Amendment which in the year 1956 inserted the words raiyat under raiyat immediately after the words tenure holder
At that time laws bad already been passed in most of the States for the acquisition of the rights of intermediaries in the estates rights of raiyats or under raiyats who might answer the description intermediary were also within the definition because of the use of the word or other intermediary
The only reason for specifically including the rights of raiyats and under raiyats in the definition could therefore be to extend the protection of article 31A to laws providing for acquisition by the State Governments of rights of these raiyats or under raiyats
In the circumstances and in the particular setting in which the words raiyat or under raiyat were introduced into the definition it must be held that the words or other intermediary occurring at the end do not qualify or colour the meaning to be attached to the tenures newly added
Another contention raised in support of the argument that the impugned law is not for acquisition of a right in an estate is that the right to hold a Mela is not a right in the lands at all
This contention is wholly unsound
Holding a hat or bazar or mela is only a mode of user by the owner of his land
Just as he can enjoy the land belonging to him in other ways he can use it for the purpose of having a concourse of people buyers and sellers and others for a hat or bazar or mela subject as in the case of other user to the requirement that no nuisance is created and the legal right of others are not infringed
Consequently the right to hold a Mela has always been 393 considered in this country to be an interest in land an interest which the owner of the land can transfer to another along with the land or without the land
There can be no doubt therefore that the right of the proprietor of an estate to hold a Mela on his own land is a right in the estate being appurtenant to his ownership of the land so also the right of a tenureholder who it has to be remembered is the owner of the land subject only to the payment of rent to the proprietor to hold a mela on land forming part of the tenure
It is true that a licence to hold a Mela on another s land in which no interest is transferred is not an interest in land but there is no question here of the acquisition of any licence to hold a Mela at another person s land
The argument that the impugned law was not a law for acquisition of a right in the estate because the right to hold a mela was not a right in the land must therefore be rejected
Lastly it was contended that long before the date of the amending Act the estates had ceased to exist as a consequence of the notifications issued under section 3 of the Parent Act and consequently whatever was being acquired in 1959 could not be a right in an estate
Here also we have to take note of the fact that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act were made retrospective with effect from the date of the original enactment so that we have to project ourselves to September 25 1950 the date of the original enactment and consider whether on that date the law provided for acquisition of a right in an estate
Undoubtedly the estates did exist on that date and so the acquisition retrospectively provided for from that date was acquisition of a right in an estate
Even if we ignore the fact that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act were given retrospective effect there is no warrant for saying that what was being acquired was not a right in an estate
Estate was defined in the Bihar Tenancy Act to mean any land included under one entry in any of the general registers of revenue paying lands and revenue free lands prepared and maintained under the law for the time being in force by the Collector of 394 a District
It is not disputed before us that in spite of the fact that in consequence of notifications under section 3 of the Act the estates had become vested in the State these registers continued to be maintained at least up to the date of the Amending Act and even later
The position therefore is that the estates have become vested in the State but have still not ceased to be estates
We have therefore come to the conclusion that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act is a law providing for the acquisition by the State of rights in an estate 
within the meaning of article 31A of the Constitution and consequently even if we assume that they are inconsistent with or take away or abridge any of the rights conferred by articles 14 19 and 31 they are not void on that ground
The conclusion cannot therefore be escaped that the ex intermediaries have not and the State has the right to hold melas on the Bakasht lands of which they have be
come occupancy raiyats under the provisions of section 6
We therefore allow the appeals by the State and set aside the order of the High Court for the issue of writs and order that the applications under article 226 made before the High Court be dismissed
We also dismiss the two petitions under article 32 of the Constitution filed in this Court and also Civil Appeal No 574 of 1960
In the circumstances of the case we make no order as to costs
Appeals by the State allowed
C A No 574 of 1960 and Petitions under article 32 dismissed


Summary:
After the estates and tenures of proprietors or tenure holders had passed to and became vested in the State by virtue of the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950 the Revenue Authorities interfered with the rights of those ex proprietors and ex tenureholders to hold Melas on lands which were occupied by them thereafter as occupancy raiyats and collected tolls from such Melas on behalf of the Government whereupon those intermediaries made applications to the High Court for writs restraining the Government from such interference which were allowed by the High Court
During the pendency in this Court of these appeals preferred by the Officers of the State of Bihar against the order of the High Court the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act 1959 was passed amending the Bihar Land Reforms Act of 1950 with retrospective effect by which the word Mela was added after the words jalkars hats and bazars in section 4 cl
b of the amended Act
Further amendments provided inter alia that the State Government and not the intermediaries except with the consent of the State Government shall have the right to hold such Melas
The main question arising for decision in these appeals and certain other applications made to this Court under article 32 of the Constitution of India was whether the amending legislation violated articles 14 19 and 31 of the Constitution
Held that the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act 1959 is a law providing for the acquisition by the State of rights in an estate within the meaning of article 31A of the Constitution and even if it is assumed that it abridges the rights conferred by articles 14 19 and 31 of the Constitution its provisions are not void on that ground
The amending legislation was within the legislative com petence of the Legislature under article 246 of the Constitution and after its amendment the legislative list permitted the State 383 Legislature to enact a law of acquisition even without a public purpose
The State of Bihar vs Sir Kameshwar Singh 1952 SCR 889 considered