ivil Appeals Nos 817 to 819 of 1968 and 1456 to 1458 of 1969 From the Judgment and order dated the 19th May 1966 and appeals by Special Leave from the Judgment and order dated the 7th November 1968 of the Punjab  Haryana High Court in CW No 2205 2206 and 2215 of 1965 and in C Revsn
771 to 773 of 1967 respectively
Rameshwar Dial and A D Mathur for the appellants In all the appeals 
K L Gosain and E C Aggarwala for respdt
Nos 1 In CA Nos 81768 1456 145769 respdt
Nos 1 and 3 in Cas
Nos 81868 and 145869 and respdt
No 1 In CA No 81968
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA IYERJ
These two batches of appeals stem from the same judgment but raise two different questions of law under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 1953 Punjab Act X of 1953 for short the Act the forensic focus being turned on two different facets of section 18 of the Act
The first set of appeals relates to the right of the tenants to purchase the ownership of the common landlord Teja while the second set of appeals turns on the principles of compensation awardable to the landlord pursuant to the vesting of ownership in the tenant
Taja the landlord was admittedly a large land owner under whom there were three tenants
Each of them applied for purchase of ownership under section 181 of the Act
The Assistant Collector who is the primary authority found them eligible fixed the price and the instalments of payment and they duly deposited the first instalment
The statutory consequence of such deposit was that title to the property vested in the tenants on that date
All these events took place in the early 60s
Had the scheme of agrarian reform in the Punjab been simple and had the virtue of early finality so necessary in such a measure been present the law would have operated with speed and changed the rural landscape radically instead of provoking a heavy run of never ending litigation
Section 24 of the Act has had this unwitting effect
Too many tiers of quasi judicial review too long at each deck and in a system which is slow moving tempt disappointed parties to litigate to the disastrous end
Such a statutory creation calculated to give ultimate justice is like a Frankenstein s monster the very prolonged over judicialised litigative engine bleeding justice to death
A legislature with care and concern for the agrarian community should be vigilant enough to design a quick and competent legal engineering project absent by contrast in most land reform laws blessing the rural poor
And it is noteworthy that legal battles are fought largely before Collectors Commissioners and Financial Commissioners and then the writ chapter begins
This litigation it is worthy of note began before the Collector in 196162
A fundamental assessment of the comparative economic and social costs of multi decked determination procedure would have induced the legislature to reduce institutional levels of adjudication
This is by the way although we strongly recommend that the legislatures do pay serious attention to producing an early termination to land reform reordering by a mammoth and immediate decision making instrumentality
849 CAs 817 81968 Shortly put and shorn of details the simple contention of the appellants in these appeals is that although their prepositus Teja was a large landowner on his death his heirs the present appellants became entitled to shares and in this process of fragmentation they became small landowners  within the meaning of section 22 of the Act
This event occurred after the tenants had been found entitled to purchase from the landowner the lands held by them and after they had deposited the first instalment as set down in section 184
The plea is that an appeal is a continuation of the original proceeding and therefore if there is a change of circumstances in the landlord s ownership during the pendency of the appeal resulting in his legal representatives becoming small landowners  the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land
Of course a tenant of a small landowner  has no right to purchase the land
But in the present case the landowner admittedly was a large landowner at the time the tenants applied for purchase
Section 181 reads dropping the irrelevant portions thus 18
Right of certain tenants to purchase land 1 Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any law usage or contract a tenant of a land owner other them a small landowner i ii iii shall be entitled to purchase from the land owner the land so held by him  in the case of a tenant falling within cli or clii at any time and in the case of a tenant falling within cl ii within a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Act It is common case that the application has been made in time and that at the time such application was made the tenants were competent to buy the land
Section 184 a and b may at this stage be read 184 a The tenant shall be competent to pay the purchase price either in a lump sum or in six monthly instalments not exceeding ten in the manner prescribed
b on the purchase price or the first instalment there of as the case may be being deposited the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land and the Assistant Collector shall where the tenant is not already in possession and subject to the provisions of the Punjab Tenancy Act  XVI of 1887 put him in possession thereof
 It is absolutely plain that on the deposit of the first instalment of the purchase price the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land
In the present case all these happenings had resulted in the respondents becoming the owners
850 The death of the large landowner occurred pending the appeal
the argument of counsel for the appellant which found favour with the Financial commissioner but failed before the High Court is that an appeal being a re hearing of the suit relief must be given to the legal representatives of the original landowner who by devolution became small landholders
If this contention be sound the tenants would have to be denied relief since they would be holding under small landowners
The solitary point which thus falls for determination is as to whether the subsequent event of the landowner s death at the appellate stage unsettles the right acquired by the tenants or whether the tribunal must uphold rights which have crystallized as on the date the applications were made and in any event the deposits of the first instalment were made by each of the tenants
We see no difficulty in answering this question against the appellant but in view of the persistent submission based upon a few rulings of this Court the Federal Court and the High Courts made by counsel for the appellant we may as well consider the question of law  adopting an interpretative attitude which will further and not frustrate the legislative will in case there are alternative choices for the Court
Of course a construction which will promote predictability of results maintenance of reasonable orderliness simplification of the judicial task advancement by the Court of the purpose of the legislation and the judicial preference for what it regards as the sounder rule of law as between competing ones must find favour with us
A plain reading of section 18 without reference to consideration of subsequent events at the appellate level yields the easy and only conclusion that the rights of parties are determined on the date they come to Court and what is an insurmountable obstacle to any other construction is that once the deposit is made the title to the land vests in the tenant
Agrarian reform law affects a considerable number of people and to keep rights uncertain over a long stretch of time till appeals and reviews and revisions and other processes are exhausted is to inject unpredictability of results for it is quite on the cards that a landlord may die in the long course of litigation or other events may happen at later stages beyond the trial Court
Can rights of parties fluctuate with such uncertain contingencies  If so stabilization of land ownerships so vital to the new pattern of agrarian relations will be postponed for a long time
Is not the judicial task simplified by adopting the golden rule that the rights of parties must be determined when they seek justice and not when the last Court has had its last say long years after the litigation was initiated  A system of orderliness about rights in land will result from this approach
More than all the sounder rule of law as between rival claims to consideration of or indifference to subsequent events is surely that which excludes the later event factually or legally
Such a reading of the statutory scheme rhymes well with rapid agrarian reform contemplated by the framers
The philosophy of the approach which commends itself to us is that a litigant who seeks justice in a perfect legal system gets it when he asks for it
Rut because human institutions of legal justice function slowly and in quest of perfection appeals and reviews at higher levels are provided for the end product comes considerably late
But these higher Courts pronounce upon the rights of parties as the facts stood when the 851 first Court was first approached
The delay of years flows from the infirmity of the judicial institution and this protraction of the Court machinery shall prejudice no one
Actus curiae neminem gravabit1
Precedential support invoked by the appellant s counsel also lets him down provided we scan the fact situation in each of those cases and the legal propositions therein laid down
The realism of our processual justice bends our jurisprudence to mould negate or regulate reliefs in the light of exceptional developments having a material and equitable import occurring during the pendency of the litigation so that the Court may not stultify itself by granting what has become meaningless or does not by a myopic view miss decisive alterations in fact situations or legal positions and drive parties to fresh litigation whereas relief can be given right here
The broad principle so stated strikes a chord of sympathy in a court of good conscience
But a seeming virtue may prove a treacherous vice unless judicial perspicacity founded on well grounded rules studies the plan of the statute its provisions regarding subsequent changes and the possible damage to the social programme of the measure if later events are allowed to unsettle speedy accomplishment of a re structuring of the land system which is the soul of this which enactment
No processual equity can be permitted to sabotage a cherished reform nor individual hardship thwart social justice
this wider perspective explains the rulings cited on both sides and the law of subsequent events on pending actions
In P Venkateswarlu vs Motor  General Traders2 this Court dealt with the adjectival activism relating to post institution circumstances Two propositions were laid down
Firstly it was held that it is basic to our processual jurisprudence that the right to relief must be judged to exist as on the date a suitor institutes the legal proceeding 
This is an emphatic statement that the right of a party is determined by the facts as they exist on the date the action is instituted
Granting the presence of such facts then he Is entitled to its enforcement
Later developments cannot defeat his right because as explained earlier had the court found his facts to be true the day he sued he would have got his decree
The Court s procedural delays cannot deprive him of legal justice or rights crystallised in the initial cause of action
This position finds support in Bhajan Lal vs State of Puniab3 
The impact of subsequent happenings may now be spelt out
First its bearing on the right of action second on the nature of the relief and third on its impotence to create or destroy substantive rights
Where the nature of the relief as originally sought has become obsolete or unserviceable or a new form of relief will be more efficacious on account of developments subsequent to the suit or even during the appellate stage it is but fair that the relief is moulded varied or re shaped in the light of dated facts
Patterson4 illustrates this position
It is important 1 An act of the court shall prejudice no one Lalin for lawyers Sweet  Maxwell
2 A I R  1410
3 4 Patterson vs State of Alabama   607 852 that the party claiming the relief or change of relief must have the same right from which either the first or the modified remedy may flow
Subsequent events in the course of the case cannot be constitutive of substantive rights enforceable in that very litigation except in a narrow category later spelt out but may influence the equitable jurisdiction to mould reliefs
Conversely where rights have already vested in a party they cannot be nullified or negated by subsequent events save where there is a change in the law and it is made applicable at any stage
Lachmeshwar Prasad Shuku vs Keswar Lal Chaudhuri1 falls in this category
Courts of justice may when the compelling equities of a case oblige them shape reliefs cannot rights to make them justly relevant in the updated circumstances
Where the relief is discretionary courts may exercise this jurisdiction to avoid injustice
Likewise where the right to the remedy depends under the statute itself on the presence or absence of certain basic facts at the time the relief is to in ultimately granted the Court even in appeal can take note of such supervening facts with fundamental impact
Venkateswarlu supra read in its statutory setting falls in this category
Where a cause o action is deficient but later events have made up the deficiency the Court may in order to avoid multiplicity of litigation permit amendment and continue the proceeding provided no prejudice is caused to the other side
All these are done only in exceptional situations and just cannot be done if the statute on which the legal proceeding is based inhibits by its scheme or otherwise such change in cause of action or relief
The primary concern of the court is to implement the justice of the legislation
Rights vested by virtue of a statute cannot be divested by this equitable doctrine See Chokalingam Chetty PC
The law stated in Ramji Lal vs the State of Punjab2 is sound Courts do very often take notice of events that happen
subsequent to the filing of suits and at times even those that have occurred during the appellate stage and permit pleadings to be amended for including a prayer for relief on the basis of such events but this is ordinarily done to avoid multiplicity of proceedings or when the original relief claimed has by reason of change in the circumstances become inappropriate and not when the plaintiff s suit would be wholly displaced by the proposed amendment see Steward vs The North Metropolitan Tramways Company and a fresh suit by him would be so barred by limitation
 One may as well add that while taking cautious judicial cognizance of post natal  events even for the limited and exceptional purposes explained earlier no court will countenance a party altering by his own manipulation
a change in situation and plead for relief on the altered basis
The apparently divergent strains of the several decisions has persuaded us to dilate on this branch of processual jurisprudence
Let us now apply the law to the circumstances here
The legislation we are interpreting relates to agrarian reform regarded as the vitaI base to build a 1 2 I L R 1966 Punj
125 853 new social order
The Constitution has stressed not merely the supreme significance of this rural transformation but the fleet footed implementation thereof even going to the extreme extent of walling off litigative assaults on constitutionality by creation of the Ninth Schedule and the like
Moreover the Act itself takes care to prevent future accumulation of lands or motivated slimming process by transfers interfering with the scheme of surplus pool and settlement of ejected tenants and the like
Peasant proprietorship is a cherished goal of the statute and so it provides that even on the payment of the first instalment of the price the tenant gets the title of the landlord
To hold that if the landlord dies at some distant date after the title has vested in the tenant the statutory process would be reversed if by such death his many children on division will be converted into small landholders is to upset the day of reckoning visualized by the Act and to make the vesting provision a teasing illusion  a formal festschrift to agrarian reform not a flaming programme of now and here 
These surrounding facts drive home the need not to allow futurism in a dawdling litigative scene to foul the quick legislative goals
Moreover the right of the respondents is fixed under section 181  and 41 and that cannot be uprooted by supervening circumstances
We are not called upon to mould the relief but to reject the right
We are not asked to avoid multiplicity of suits but to non suit and thus stultify the agrarian law
We are not required to permit the appellate authority to re assess the facts as they stood when the action was brought that is part of appellate power but to project the landholder s subsequent death backwards to refuse a right already acquired
A flash back camera in this context frustrates forensic objectives
Individual misfortune may be real but larger social changes will claim martyrs in law and in fact
How can we miss the sublime impact of the Passion of Christ for the Redemption of Mankind  The great fact is that if uniformly relentlessly and swiftly enforced neither landlord nor tenant can keep more than the permissible area 
That is the equity and equality of this agrarian law
We see no merit in the appeals and dismiss them leaving parties to bear their respective costs throughout
1456 145869 These appeals raise an interesting question of law bearing on compensation payable to landholders whose lands are vested in tenants and this turns on the connotation of similar land  in section 182 of the Act in the context of averaging the price for ten years before the filing of the application for purchase
The primary fact which projects this point 854 Of law is as to whether the purchased land is irrigated or non irrigated for purposes of valuation
We are relieved from the need to investigate the implications of the issue because the factual foundation about the nature of the land in question was never put in issue nor considered in the High Court
Thus the appellants have missed the bus and we cannot hear them on a question raised de novo and demanding enquiry into facts not raised at the next below level
We dismiss these appeals without costs
VMK Appeals dismissed


Summary:
Section 181 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act 1953
lays down that notwithstanding to the contrary contained in any law usage or contract a tenant of a land owner other then a small land owner shall be entitled to purchase from the land owner the land so held by him in the Case of a tenant falling within Cl
i or cl
ii at any time
and in the case of a tenant falling within Cl
iii within a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Act
Section 184a provided that the tenant shall be competent to pay the purchase price either in a lump sum or in six monthly instalments not exceeding ten in the manner prescribed
Clause b provided that on the purchase price or the first instalment thereof as the case may be being deposited the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land
Teja the landlord was a large land owner under whom there were three tenants
Each o them applied for purchase of ownership under section 181 of the Act
The Assistant Collector found them eligible fixed the price and the instalments of payment and they duly deposited the first instalment
After this Teja died
Before the Financial Commissioner the appellants contended that on the death of Teja they as the heirs of Teja became entitled to shares and in this process of fragmentation they became small landowners within the meaning of section 22 of the Act and therefore the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land
Their plea was that an appeal is a continuation of the original proceeding and therefore is there is a change of circumstances in the landlord s ownership during the pendency of the appeal resulting in his legal representatives becoming small landowners  the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land
The appellants succeeded before the Financial Commissioner but failed before the High Court
This appeal has been preferred on the basis of the special leave granted by this Court
Dismissing the appeals  HELD i It is absolutely plain that on the deposit of the first instalment of the purchase price the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land
In the present case all these happenings had resulted in the respondents becoming the owners
849 H ii Where rights have already vested in a party they cannot be nullified or negated by subsequent events save where there is a change in law and it is made applicable at any stage
852 B P Venkataswarlu vs Motor  General Traders   1410 Bhajan Lal vs State of Panjab  Patterson vs State of Alabama  1934 294 US 600 607 Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul v Keshwar Lal Chau   607 Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul vs Keshwar Lal Chaudhuri and Ramji Lal vs The State of Panjab ILR 1966 Punj
125 referred to
The death of the large landowner occurred pending the appeal
The right of the respondents is fixed under sub sections 1 and 4 of S 18 of the Act and that cannot be uprooted by supervening circumstances
A plain reading of section 18 Yields the only conclusion that the rights of parties are determined on the date they come to court
853 D 6 1127SCI75 848