Case: Maharaj Singh Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others

KRISHNA IYER, J. 1. Two principal submissions, whose implications perhaps are of profound moment and have public impact, have been, at wide-ranging length, urged in this appeal by certificate, by Shri Shanti Bhusan, for the appellant/defendant and, with effective brevity controverted by the Solicitor General, for respondent/1st plaintiff. The two focal points of the controversy are; (a) Is the appeal to the High Court by the State/1st plaintiff at all competent, entitlement as a party aggrieved being absent, having regard to the provisions of the U. P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act. 1950 (U. P. Act 1 of 1951) (for short, the Act) ?; and (b)Is it sound to conceptualise area appurtenant to buildings in Section 9 of the Act so narrowly as has been done by the High Court ? There were two plaintiffs - the State of Uttar Pradesh and the Gaon Sabha of Bedpura - claiming common but alternative reliefs. The suit was for injuction or ejectment, on title, of the sole defendant who was the quondam zamindar of the estate which is the subject-matter of the suit. The trial Court dismissed the suit whereupon the 2nd plaintiff dropped out of the litigation, as it were, and the State alone pursued the manner by way of appeal against the decree. The High Court partially allowed the appeal and the aggrieved defendant is the appellant before us. 2. An expose of the facts may now be given to the extent necessary for explaining the setting of the contentions between the parties. The State of Uttar Pradesh extinguished all zamindari estates by the Act and implemented a scheme of settlement of lands with intermediaries, tenants and others by first vesting all estates in the State ad empowering it to vest, divest and re-vest from time to time according to flexible needs and ad hoc requirements, the same estates in Goan Sabhas or other local authorities. Settlement of trees, building and other specified items in the intermediaries was also part of the agrarian reform. A skeleton picture of the legislation may now be projected. But before that, a short sketch of the actual dispute may illumine the further discussion. 3. The suit lands were part of an estate owned and possessed by the defendant-zamindarini. The statutory consequence of the abolition of all zamindaris by force of Section 4 is spelt out in Section 6, to wit, the cesser of the ownership of the zamindar and vesting of title and possession in the State. By a notification under Section 117 (1) of the Act the area of lands was vested by the State in the 2nd plaintiff Gaon Sahba. The legislative nullification notwithstanding, the defendant who had been conducting a lucrative bi-weekly cattle fair, the best in the district, persisted in this profitable adventure strengthened by Section 9 of the Act which settles in the intermediary all buildings and area appurtenant thereto. This resulted in possessory disputes between the Gaon Sabha and the defendant-proceedings under Section 145 upholding the latters possession and the present suit for declaration of title and consequential injuction or ejectment. 4. The estate, which is the site of the rural cattle market, has a large number of trees on it, a temple in one plot, a (veterinary ?) clinic in another and quite a number of cattle stands and other auxiliary structures which are facilities for the bovine displays and transaction of business. Taking advantage of the provisions of the Act, the defendant successfully claimed before the High Court that the trees and the two plots with the Shrine and the Oushadhalaya should be deemed to have been settled with her. Her ambitious demand, based on some provisions which we will presently X-ray more carefully, was that the entire estate with all the buildings thereon as enjoyed as a unum quid and the vacant lands were as much necessary for the meaningful running of the cattle fair as the structures themselves. To dissect and detach the buildings from the vacant spaces was to destroy the functional wholeness of the service rendered. In short, the large intervening area surrounding the chabutras and other edifices were essential adjuncts or appurtenant lands which, together in their appurtenant lands which, together in their original entirely, should be settled under Section 9 of the Act with the erstwhile intermediary viz., the defendant. The High Court declined to go the whole hog with the defendant but granted the plea to the limited degree of giving all the structures and a space of 5 yards running round each building. In the view of the Court hats, bazars, and melas could nto be held by a private owner under the scheme of the Act and reliance on the conduct of the cattle market as an indicator of appurtenant area was, therefore, impermissible. The suit was decreed pro tanto. 5. The Gaon Sabha, when defeated in the trial Court, discreetly stepped out of the risks of an appeal but the Government, first plaintiff, claiming to be gravely aggrieved, challenged the dismissal of the suit and was faced with the plea that the land having vested in the plea that the land having vested in the Gaon Sabha, on the issue of the notification under Section 117 (10 of the Act, the State had no. surviving interest in the property and, therefore, forfeited the position of a person aggrieved, who alone could competently appeal against a decree. This contention, negatived by the High Court, has been reiterated before us with resourceful embellishments and that, logically, is the first question of law, falling for our decision and is the piece de resistance, if we may so, in this appeal. If the 1st plaintiffs entire interests, by subsequent plenary vesting in the 2nd plaintiff, have perished, the former cannot, as of right, appeal under Section 96, Civil Procedure Code, Survival after death is unknown to real property law and suits, without at least apprehended injury, are beyond the ken of the procedural law. To put it in a nut-shell, has the State current interest in the estate, sufficient to sustain an appeal ? 6. The anatomy of the Act, so far as this dispute is concerned, needs to be set out and alongside thereof, the exercises in statutory construction necessary to resolve the two legal disputes. The Act had for its primary object, as testified by its Preamble, the extinction of intermediary rights viz., zamindaris and the like. The goal of the legislation must make its presence felt while the judicial choice of meanings of words of ambiguous import or plurality of significations is made. Section 4 is the foundational provision, the very title deed of the State; and it runs to read :S. 4. Vesting of estates in the State. (1) As soon as may be after the commencement of this Act, the State Government may, by notification, declare that as from a date to be specified, all estate situate in the Uttar Pradesh shall vest in the State and as form the beginning of the date so specified (hereinafter called the date of vesting), all such estates as hereinafter provided, in the State free from all encumbrances. (2) It shall be lawful for the State Government, if it so considers necessary to issue, from time to time, the notification referred to in sub-section (i) in respect only of such area as may be specified and all provisions of sub-section (1), shall be applicable to and in the case of every such notification. Section 6 sets out the legal consequences of such vesting more specifically. We may extract the provision 6. Consequences of the vesting of an estate in the State.- When the notification under Section 4 has been published in the Gazette then notwithstanding anything contained in any contract or document or in any other law for the time being in force and save as otherwise provided in this Act, the consequences as hereinafter set forth shall, from the beginning of the date of vesting, ensure in the area to which the notification relates, namely- (a) all rights, title and interest of all the intermediaries - (i) in every estate in such area including land (cultivable or barren), grove-land, forests whether within or outside village boundaries, trees (other than trees in village abadi, holding or grove), fisheries, tanks, ponds, water-channels ferries, pathways, abadi sites, hats, bazars and melas other than hats, bazars and melas held upon land which clauses (a) to (c) of sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply, and (ii) in all sub-soil in such estates including rights, if any, in mines and minerals, whether being worked or not; shall cease and be vested in the State of Uttar Pradesh free from all encumbrances; xxxxxxxx Reading the two sister sections together, certain clear conclusions emerge. Emphatically, three things happened on the coming into force of the Act. By virtue of Section 4 the right, title and interest of all intermediaries in every estate, including hasts, bazars and melas, stood terminated. Secondly, this whole bundle of interests came to be vested in the State, free from all encumbrances, the quality of the vesting being absolute. Thirdly, one and only one species of property in hats, bazars and melas was expressly excluded from the total vesting of estates in the State, viz., such as had been held on lands to which Section 18 (1) (a) to (c) applied. Section 9, at this stage, needs to be read since it is geared to the nationalisation of zamindaris by providing for settlement, under the State, of some kinds of landed interests in existing owners or occupiers. Section 9 states :Private wells, trees in abadi and buildings to be settled with the existing owners or occupiers thereof. - All wells, trees in abadi, and all buildings situate within the limits of an estate, belonging to or held by an intermediary or tenant or other persons, whether residing in the village or not, shall continue to belong to or be held by such intermediary, tenant or person, as the case may be, and the sites of the wells or the buildings which are appurtenant thereto shall be deemed to be settled with him by the State Government on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed. A close-up of this section is called for since the basic plank of the defendants case is the claim to the whole set of plots as buildings and appurtenant area of land statutorily settled with him. If he is such a settle, the substantive merit of the plaintiffs title fails. We will examine this aspect after a survey of the sections relevant to the locus standi of the State is done. 7. So we shift to Chapter VII which relates to Gaon Sabhas, vesting by the State of resumed estates in them and the limitations and other conditions to which it is subject. Attributed legal personality by Section 3, the Gaon Sabhas are bodies corporate which, under the various provisions of Chapter VII, have been invested with legal viability, right to own and hold property, to transfer and otherwise deal with moveables and immovables and manage their landed assets through the executive agency of Land Management Committee. This comprehensive proprietary personality of the Sabha is indisputable but upheld for our purpose. The controversy before us comes into focus when we read Section 117 (1), (2) and (6), all the limbs being taken as belonging to a legally living corporate body. Section 117, clauses (1) and (2), provide :117. Vesting of certain lands etc., in Gaon Sabhas and other local authorities.- (1) At any time after the publication of the notification referred to in Section 4, the State Government may, by general or special order to be published in the manner prescribed, declare that as from a date to be specified in this behalf, all or any of the following things, namely - xxxxxxxx (v) hats, bazars and melas except hats, bazars, and melas held on land to which the provisions of clauses (a) to (c) of sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply or on sites and areas referred to in Section 9, and xxxxxxxx which had vested in the State under this Act shall vest in the Gaon Sabhas or/and other local authority established for the whole or part of the village in which the said things are situate, or partly in one such local authority (including a Gaon Sabha) and partly in another : Provided that it shall be lawful for the State Government to make the declaration aforesaid subject to such exceptions and conditions as may be specified in the notification. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or in any other law for the time being in force, the State Government may, by general or special order to be published in the manner prescribed in the Gazette, declare that as from a date to be specified in this behalf, all or any of the things specified in clauses (i) to (vi) of sub-section (1) which after their vesting in the State under this Act had been vested in a Gaon Sabha or any other local authority, either under this Act or under Section 126 of the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Mahapalika Adhiniyam, 1959 (U. P. Act II of 1959) shall vest in any other local authority (including a Gaon Sabha) established for the whole or part of the village in which the said things are situate. Section 117 (6) injects a precarious dose into the system of estates vested in Gaon Sabhas by sub-section (1) and goes on to state :117 (6). The State Government may, at any time, by general or special order to be published in the manner prescribed, amend or cancel any declaration or notification made in respect of any of the things aforesaid, whether generally or in the case of any Gaon Sabha or other local authority, and resume such thing and whenever the State Government so resumes any such thing, the Gaon Sabha or other local authority, as the case may be, shall be entitled to receive and be paid compensation on account only of the development, if any, effected by it in or over that thing : Provided that the State Government may, after such resumption, make a fresh declaration under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) vesting the thing resumed in the same or any other local authority (including a Gaon Sabha) and the provisions of sub-sections (3), (4) and (5), as the case may be, shall mutatis mutandis, apply to such declaration. xxxxxxxx 8. Before moving further, we may glance at a group of sections which have more than peripheral impact on the legal equation between Government and Sabha vis-a-vis erstates vested in the latter by the former. Section 119 carves out a power for the State Government to take away hats, bazars and melas vested in a Gaon authority. Sections 122-A and 122-B create and regulate the Land Management Committee which is to administer the estate vested in the Sabha and Section 126, quite importantly, gives the power to the State Governement to issue orders and directions to the Management Committee. 9. Pausing here for an interest, let us look back on the State which, through its Executive branch, vests a resumed estates in a Gaon Sabha, retaining power, at any time, and without conditions or even compensation (save for actual development work done), to divest the land so vested and make it over to another like local authority. In such a situation where the State remains the legal master with absolute powers of disposition over the land vested pro tempore in a particular Gaon Sabha, can it be postulated that it has no. legal interest in the preservation of that over which it has continuous power of operation, despite vesting estates in Gaon Sabhas on the wholesome political principle off decentralisation and local self-government, has and continues to have a constant hold on these estates, may be like a brooding omnipotence, descending, when it chooses, to take away what it had given possession of to a Sabha. This is plainly present legal interest in Government and a sort of precarium tenans in the Sabha, notwithstanding the illusory expression vesting which may mislead one into the impression that an absolute and permanent ownership has been created. 10. An overview of these legal prescriptions make one sceptical about the statutory ideology of autonomous village self-government since, so far as estates are concerned, these sabhas have been handcuffed and thrown at the mercy or mood of the State Government. The pragmatics of the Act has reduced Gaon Sabhas to obedient holders, for the nonce, of the limited bounty of estates vested in them - a formal fickle, homage to Article 40 of the Constitution !11. Shri Shanti Bhusan did draw our attention to certain cousin status and other remotely related provisions but the soul of his submissions does not suffer by their omission in the discussion. We pass on to the spinal issues agitated before us. Locus standi : 12. The estates first vest in the State. The fulfilment of the purpose of the Act, the setting in which the cornerstone for the statutory edifice is laid and the categorical langtuage used, especially free from all encumbrances, leave no. doubt in our minds, nor was it dispute before us, that this intiial vesting is absolute and inaugurates the scheme of abolition. The consequences of vesting articulated by Section 6 only underscore this conclusion. 13. What next ensues, when the State Government, acting under Section 117 (1), notifies a further vesting in a Goan Sabha is the cardinal question. Does the State retain a residuary legal interest, sufficient to make it a person aggrieved, competent to challenge in appeal an adverse decree? And can the State canvas for th eposition that a proprietary right persists in its albeit its act of vesting the same estate earlier in a local authority? Does the key word vest connote and denote divergetn things in the same section and Act vis-a-vs Government and the Gaon Sabha ? Had drafting skills been better, this unlovely ambiguity could have been avoided. But courts have no. choice but to take the test as it is. Zeroing in on the relevant provisions, we are inclined to concur with the High Court.With certificate one may asert that the State has that minimal interest to follow the proprietary fortunes of the estate so as to entitle it to take legal action to interdict its getting into alien hands. 14. The legislative project and the legal engineering visualised by the Act are clear and the semantics of the words used in the provisions must bend, if they can, to subserve them. To be liberal or be blinkered by some rigid canon of construction may be to mis the life of the law iteslef. Strength may be derived for this interpretative stand from the observations in a recent judgment of this Court, (Civil Appeal No. 15218 of 1971, D/- 16-10-1976 (SC) :A word can have many meanings. To find out the exact connotation of a word in a statute, we must look to the context in which it is used. The context would quite often provide the key to meaning of the word and the sense it should cary. Its setting would give colour to it and provide a cue to the intention of the legislature in using it. A word, as said by Holmes, is not acrystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living though and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. In the instant case the Act contemplates taking over of all zamindari rights as part of land reforms. however, instead of centralising management of all estates at State level, to stimulate local self-government, the Act gives an enabling power - not obligatory duty - to make over these estates to Gaon Sabhas which, so long as they are in their hands, will look after them through management committees which wil be under the statutory control of Government under Section 126. Apart from management, no. power is expressly vested in the Sabhas to dispose of the estates absolutely.; The fact that as a body corporate it can own and sell property does not mean that the estates vested in a sabha can be finally sold away, in the teeth of the provisions striking a contrary note. For, under Section 117 (6), if, for any reasons of better management or other, the State (Government is but the operational arm of the State and cannot, as contended, be delinked as a separate entity, in this context) - the State thinks fit to amend or cancel the earrlier vesting declaration or notification, it can totally deprive the Sabha of, and resume from it, any estate. This plenary power to emasculate or extinguish the Sabhas right to the estate is tell-tale. True, this cut-back on the amplitude of the vesting is not an incident of the estate created but is provided for by the Act itself. Even so, we have to envision, int erms of realty law, what are the natujre and incidents of the intests vested in the Sabha - fall ownership divestible under no. circumstances or partial estate with the paramount interest still surviving in praesenti in the State? 15. It is reasonable to harmonize the statutory provisions to reach a solution which will be least incognruous with legal rights we are cognisant of in current jurisprudence. Novelty is not a favoured child of the law. So it is right to fix the estate created by Section 117 into familiar moulds, if any. Such an approach lends to the position that the vesting in the State was absolute but the vesting in the Sabha was limited to possession and management subject to divestiture by Government. Is such a construction of vesting in two diferent senses in the same section, sound? yes. It is, because vesting is a word of slippery import and has many meanings. The context controls the test and the purpose and scheme project the particular semantic shade or nuance of meaning. That is why even definition clauses allow themselves to be modifified by contextual compulsions. So the sense of the situation suggests that in Section 117 (1) of the Act vested in the State carries a pleanary connotaion, while shall vest in the Gaon Sabha imports a qualified disposition confined to the right to full possession and enjoyment so long as it lasts. Lexicographic support is forthcoming, for this meaning. Blacks law Dictionary gives as the sense of to vest as to give an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment, to clothe with possession, to delivery full possession of land or of an estate, to give seisin. Websters III Internwational Dictionary gives the meaning as to give to a person a legally fixed immediate right of present or future enjoyment. 16. The High Court has sought some English judicial backing, Richardson v. Roberstson, (1862) 6 LT 75 and Hinde v. Chorlton, (1866) 6 LT 75 and Hinde v. Chorlton, (1866) 2 CP 104, . 116, for taking liberties with strict and pedantic construjction. A ruling of this Court, Fruit and Vegetable Merchants Union v. Delhi Improvement Trust, (AIR 1957 SC 344 ) has been aptly presed into service. 17. There is thus authority for the position that the expression vest is of fluid or flexible content and can, if the context so dictates, bear the limited sense of being in posession and enjoyment. Indeed, to postulate vesting of absolute title int he Gaon Sabha by virtue of the declaration under Section 117 (1) of the Act is to stultify Section 117 (1) of the Act is to stultify section 117 (6). Not that the legislature cannot create a right to divest what has been completely vested but that an explanation of the term vesting which will rationalise and integrate the initial vesting and the subsequent resumptin is preferable, more plausible and better fulfills the purpose of the Act. We hold that the State has title to sustain the action in ejectment. 18. Aside from this stand, it is easy to take the view that the 1st plaintiff, is a person aggreived and has the competent to carry an appeal agaisnt the dismissal of the suit. Of course, he who has a proprietary right, which has been or is threatned to be violated, is surely and aggreived person. A legal injury creates a remedial right in the injured person. But the right to a remedy apart, a larger circle of persons can move the Court for the protection or defence or enforcement of a civil right or to ward off or claim compensation for a civil wrong, even if they are not proprietarily or personally linked with the cause of action. The nexus between the lies and the plaintiff need not necessarily be personal, although it has to be more than a wayfarers allergy to an unpalatable episode. A person aggreived is an expression which has expanded with the larger urgenceis and felt necessiuties of our times. Processual jurisprudence is not too jejune to respond to societal changes and challenges :Law necesarily hs to cary within if the impres of the past traditions, the capacity to respond to the needs of the present and enough resilience to cope with the demands of the future. A code of law, espeically in the social fields, is not a document for fastidious dialectics; properly drafted and rightly implemented it can be the means of the ordering of the life of a people.* * Address by - Khanna, J., at the Birth Centenary of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, D/- 16-10-1976 at Allahabad. 19. The classical concept of a person aggrieved is delineated in Re; Sidebothan ex p. Sidebotham, )1880) 14 Ch D 258). But the amplitude of legal grievance has broadened with social compulsions. The State undertakes today activities whose beneficiaries may be the general community even though the legal right to the undertaking may not vest in the community. The State starts welfare projects whose effective implemntatin may call for collective action from the protected groups or any member of them. New movements like consumerism, new peoples organs like harijan or mahila samajams or labour unions, new protective institutions like legal aid societies operate on the socilegal plane, not to beat their golden wings in the void but to intervene on behalf of the weake r calsses. Such burgeoning of collective social action has, in turn, generated graudal processual adaptations. Test suits, class actins and representative litigation are the beginning and the horizon is expanding with persons and organisations not personally injured but vicariously concerned being entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of the court for redressal of actual or imminent wrongs. 20. In this wider perspective, who is a person aggrieved? Dabholkar (1976) 1 SCR 306 = (AIR 1975 SC 2092 ) gives the updated answer :The test is whether the words person aggrieved include a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicallly affects his interest. (p. 315 of SCR) = (at p. 2098 of AIR) American jurisproducen has recognised, for instance, the expanding importance of consumer protection in the economic system and permitted consumer organisations to initiate or intervene in actions, although by the narrow rule of locus standi, such a course could not have been justified (see p. 807 - New York University Law Reveiw, Vol. 46, 1971). In fact, citizen organisation have recently been campaigning for using legal actions for protection of community interest, braodiening the scope of standing in legal proceedings (see p. 403 - Bosten Unviersity Law Reveiw, Vol. 51, 1971). In the well-known case of Attorney General of the Gambia v. Peirra Serr NJie, (161), Lord Denning observed about the Attorney-Generals standing thus : ........ The word person aggrieved are of wide import and should not be subjected to a restrictive interpretation. They do not include, of course, a mere busybody who is interfering in things which do not concern him; but they do include a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicially affects his itnerest. (pp. 324-325 of SCR) = (at p. 2105 of AIR). 21. Where a wrong against community itnerest is done, no locus standi will not always be a plea to non-suit an interested public body chasing th ewrongdoes in court. In the case before us, Government, in the spacious sense of person aggreived ius comfortably placed. Its right of resumption from the Gaon Sabha, meant to be exercised in public interest, will be seriously jeopardised if the estate slips into the hands of a trespasser. The estate belonged to the State, is vested in the Gaon Sabha for community benefit, is controlled by the State through directions to the Land Management Committee and is liable to be divested without ado any time. The wholesome object of th elegislature of cautiously decentralised vesting of estates in local self-governning units will be frustrated, if the State, the watch-dog of the whole project, is to be a helpless spectator of its purposeful bountry being wasted or lost. It must act, out of fidelity to the goal of the statute and the continuing duty to salvage public property for public use. Long argument is otiose to make out a legal grievance in such a stituation of peril and, after all, the star of processual actions pro bono publico has to be on the ascendant in a society where supineness must be substituted by activism if the dynamic rule of law is to fulfil iteslef. Locus standi has a larger ambit in current legal semantics than the accepted, individualistic jurisproducen of old. The legal dogmas of the quiet past are no. longer adequate to assail the social injustices of the stormy present. Therefore, the State, in the present case, is entitled to appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Area appurtenant : 22. The second, and from a practical point of view, equally potent ground of defence, is that appurtenant space envelops the whole area around the buildings and the suit for recovery of possession deserveses to be dismissed in toto. Let us examine thsi submision. 23. Section 9 of the Act obligates the State to settle (9indeed, it is deemed to be settled) with the intermediary certain items in the estate. That provisions has been set out earlier. The short enquiry is whether the entire land is appurtenant to the buildings. The contention of the defendant flows along these liens. The structures accepted by teh High Court as buildings within the scope of Section 9 were part of a cattle fair complex. Even the Mandir and the Oushadalaya fitted into the Hat total and the integrity of the whole could not be broken up without violating the long years of common enjoyment. It would also be a double injury : (a) to the defendant; and (b) to the community. The hat or mela could not be held by the defendant if the land were snatched away and the Government could do nothing on the land without the buildings belonging to the defendant. May be there is some sociological substance in the preesentation but the broader purpose of the section cannot be sacrificed to the marginal cases like the present. The larger objectivfe, is to settle with the former intermediary only such land as is strictly appurtenant to buildings, all the rest going to the State for implementation of the agrarian reform policy. 24. The key to the solution of the dispute lies in ascertaining whether land on which the cattle fair was being held was appurtenant to the buildings or not on the strength of its use for the Hat. The Solicitor General made a two-pronged attach on the defendants proposition. firstly, he argued that hats, bazars and meals were a distinct interest in the scheme of Indian agrestic life and agrarian law. This right had been virtually nationlised by the Actand only the State or the Gaon Sabha, save where Section 18 (a) to (c) otherwise provided, could hold a fair. A ruling by this Court on an analogous subject lends support to this contention (see State of Bihar v. Dulhin Shanti Devi, AIR 1967 SC 427 relating to Bihar Land Reforms Act). 25. The heated debate at the bar on this and allied aspects need not detain us further also because of our concurrence with the second contention of the Solicitor General that the large open spaces cannot be regarded as appurtenant to the terraces, stands and structures. What is integral is not necessarily appurtenant. A position of subordination, something incidental or ancillary or dependent is implied in appurtenance. Can we say that the large spaces are subsidiary or ancillary to or inevitably inplied in the enjoyment of the buildings qua buildings? That much of space required for the use of the structures as such has been excluded by the High Court itself. Beyond that may or may not be necessary for the hat or mela but not for the enjoyment of the chabutras as such. A hundred acres may spread out in front of a club house for various games like golf. But all these abundant acres are unnecessary for nor indidental to the enjoyment of the house in any reasonable manner. It is confusion to miss the distinction, fine but real. 26. Appurtenance in relation to a dwelling or to a school, college ....... includes all land occupied therewith and used for the purposes thereof (Words and Phrases Legally Defined - Butterwords, 2nd Edn. ). The word appurtenances has a distinct and definite meaning ..... Prima facie it imports nothing more than what is strictly appertaining to the subject-matter of the devise or grant, and which would, in truth, pass without being specially mentioned! Ordinarily, what is necessary for the enjoyment and has been used for the purpose of the building, such as easements, alone will be appurtenant. Therefore, what is necessary for the enjoyment of the building is alone covered by the expression appurtenance. If some other purpose was being fulfilled by the building and the lands, it is not posible to content that those lands are covered by the expression appurtenances includes all the incorporeal hereditaments attached to the land granted or demised, such as rights of way, of common.... but it does not include lands in addition to that granted. (Words and Phrases, supra) 27. In short, the touchstone of appurtenance is dependence of the building on what appertains to it for its use as a building. Obviously, the hat, bazar or mela is not an appurtenance to the building. The law thus leads to the clear conclusion that even if the buildings were used and enjoyed in the past with the whole stretch of vacant space for a hat or mela, the land is not appurtenant to the pricnipal subject granted by section 9, viz. buildings. 28. This conclusion is inevitable, although the contrary arguments may be ingenious. What the High Court has granted, viz., 5 yards of surrounding space, is sound in law although based on guess-work in fact.

Decision:
0[ds]Reading the two sister sections together, certain clear conclusions emerge. Emphatically, three things happened on the coming into force of the Act. By virtue of Section 4 the right, title and interest of all intermediaries in every estate, including hasts, bazars and melas, stood terminated. Secondly, this whole bundle of interests came to be vested in the State, free from all encumbrances, the quality of the vesting being absolute. Thirdly, one and only one species of property in hats, bazars and melas was expressly excluded from the total vesting of estates in the State, viz., such as had been held on lands to which Section 18 (1) (a) to (c) applied.9. Pausing here for an interest, let us look back on the State which, through its Executive branch, vests a resumed estates in a Gaon Sabha, retaining power, at any time, and without conditions or even compensation (save for actual development work done), to divest the land so vested and make it over to another like local authority. In such a situation where the State remains the legal master with absolute powers of disposition over the land vested pro tempore in a particular Gaon Sabha, can it be postulated that it has no. legal interest in the preservation of that over which it has continuous power of operation, despite vesting estates in Gaon Sabhas on the wholesome political principle off decentralisation and local self-government, has and continues to have a constant hold on these estates, may be like a brooding omnipotence, descending, when it chooses, to take away what it had given possession of to a Sabha. This is plainly present legal interest in Government and a sort of precarium tenans in the Sabha, notwithstanding the illusory expression vesting which may mislead one into the impression that an absolute and permanent ownership has been created.11. Shri Shanti Bhusan did draw our attention to certain cousin status and other remotely related provisionsbut the soul of his submissions does not suffer by their omission in the discussion.12. The estates first vest in the State. The fulfilment of the purpose of the Act, the setting in which the cornerstone for the statutory edifice is laid and the categorical langtuage used, especially free from all encumbrances, leave no. doubt in our minds, nor was it dispute before us, that this intiial vesting is absolute and inaugurates the scheme of abolition. The consequences of vesting articulated by Section 6 only underscore this conclusion.Had drafting skills been better, this unlovely ambiguity could have been avoided. But courts have no. choice but to take the test as it is. Zeroing in on the relevant provisions, we are inclined to concur with the High Court.With certificate one may asert that the State has that minimal interest to follow the proprietary fortunes of the estate so as to entitle it to take legal action to interdict its getting into alien hands.In the instant case the Act contemplates taking over of all zamindari rights as part of land reforms. however, instead of centralising management of all estates at State level, to stimulate local self-government, the Act gives an enabling power - not obligatory duty - to make over these estates to Gaon Sabhas which, so long as they are in their hands, will look after them through management committees which wil be under the statutory control of Government under Section 126. Apart from management, no. power is expressly vested in the Sabhas to dispose of the estates absolutely.; The fact that as a body corporate it can own and sell property does not mean that the estates vested in a sabha can be finally sold away, in the teeth of the provisions striking a contrary note. For, under Section 117 (6), if, for any reasons of better management or other, the State (Government is but the operational arm of the State and cannot, as contended, be delinked as a separate entity, in this context) - the State thinks fit to amend or cancel the earrlier vesting declaration or notification, it can totally deprive the Sabha of, and resume from it, any estate. This plenary power to emasculate or extinguish the Sabhas right to the estate is tell-tale. True, this cut-back on the amplitude of the vesting is not an incident of the estate created but is provided for by the Act itself. Even so, we have to envision, int erms of realty law, what are the natujre and incidents of the intests vested in the Sabha - fall ownership divestible under no. circumstances or partial estate with the paramount interest still surviving in praesenti in the State?15. It is reasonable to harmonize the statutory provisions to reach a solution which will be least incognruous with legal rights we are cognisant of in current jurisprudence. Novelty is not a favoured child of the law. So it is right to fix the estate created by Section 117 into familiar moulds, if any. Such an approach lends to the position that the vesting in the State was absolute but the vesting in the Sabha was limited to possession and management subject to divestiture by Government. Is such a construction of vesting in two diferent senses in the same section, sound? yes. It is, because vesting is a word of slippery import and has many meanings. The context controls the test and the purpose and scheme project the particular semantic shade or nuance of meaning. That is why even definition clauses allow themselves to be modifified by contextual compulsions. So the sense of the situation suggests that in Section 117 (1) of the Act vested in the State carries a pleanary connotaion, while shall vest in the Gaon Sabha imports a qualified disposition confined to the right to full possession and enjoyment so long as it lasts. Lexicographic support is forthcoming, for this meaning.17. There is thus authority for the position that the expression vest is of fluid or flexible content and can, if the context so dictates, bear the limited sense of being in posession and enjoyment. Indeed, to postulate vesting of absolute title int he Gaon Sabha by virtue of the declaration under Section 117 (1) of the Act is to stultify Section 117 (1) of the Act is to stultify section 117 (6). Not that the legislature cannot create a right to divest what has been completely vested but that an explanation of the term vesting which will rationalise and integrate the initial vesting and the subsequent resumptin is preferable, more plausible and better fulfills the purpose of the Act. We hold that the State has title to sustain the action in ejectment.18. Aside from this stand, it is easy to take the view that the 1st plaintiff, is a person aggreived and has the competent to carry an appeal agaisnt the dismissal of the suit. Of course, he who has a proprietary right, which has been or is threatned to be violated, is surely and aggreived person. A legal injury creates a remedial right in the injured person. But the right to a remedy apart, a larger circle of persons can move the Court for the protection or defence or enforcement of a civil right or to ward off or claim compensation for a civil wrong, even if they are not proprietarily or personally linked with the cause of action. The nexus between the lies and the plaintiff need not necessarily be personal, although it has to be more than a wayfarers allergy to an unpalatable episode. A person aggreived is an expression which has expanded with the larger urgenceis and felt necessiuties of our times.Dabholkar (1976) 1 SCR 306   = (AIR 1975 SC 2092  ) gives the updated answer :The test is whether the words person aggrieved include a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicallly affects his interest(p. 315 of SCR) = (at p. 2098 of AIR)American jurisproducen has recognised, for instance, the expanding importance of consumer protection in the economic system and permitted consumer organisations to initiate or intervene in actions, although by the narrow rule of locus standi, such a course could not have been justified (see p. 807 - New York University Law Reveiw, Vol. 46, 1971). In fact, citizen organisation have recently been campaigning for using legal actions for protection of community interest, braodiening the scope of standing in legal proceedings (see p. 403 - Bosten Unviersity Law Reveiw, Vol. 51, 1971)In the well-known case of Attorney General of the Gambia v. Peirra Serr NJie, (161), Lord Denning observed about the Attorney-Generals standing thus :........ The word person aggrieved are of wide import and should not be subjected to a restrictive interpretation. They do not include, of course, a mere busybody who is interfering in things which do not concern him; but they do include a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicially affects his itnerest. (pp. 324-325 of SCR) = (at p. 2105 of AIR).. Where a wrong against community itnerest is done, no locus standi will not always be a plea to non-suit an interested public body chasing th ewrongdoes in court. In the case before us, Government, in the spacious sense of person aggreived ius comfortably placed. Its right of resumption from the Gaon Sabha, meant to be exercised in public interest, will be seriously jeopardised if the estate slips into the hands of a trespasser. The estate belonged to the State, is vested in the Gaon Sabha for community benefit, is controlled by the State through directions to the Land Management Committee and is liable to be divested without ado any time. The wholesome object of th elegislature of cautiously decentralised vesting of estates in local self-governning units will be frustrated, if the State, the watch-dog of the whole project, is to be a helpless spectator of its purposeful bountry being wasted or lost. It must act, out of fidelity to the goal of the statute and the continuing duty to salvage public property for public use. Long argument is otiose to make out a legal grievance in such a stituation of peril and, after all, the star of processual actions pro bono publico has to be on the ascendant in a society where supineness must be substituted by activism if the dynamic rule of law is to fulfil iteslef. Locus standi has a larger ambit in current legal semantics than the accepted, individualistic jurisproducen of old. The legal dogmas of the quiet past are no. longer adequate to assail the social injustices of the stormy present. Therefore, the State, in the present case, is entitled to appeal under Section 96 of theCode of Civil Procedure.23. Section 9 of the Act obligates the State to settle (9indeed, it is deemed to be settled) with the intermediary certain items in the estate. That provisions has been set out earlier.The short enquiry is whether the entire land is appurtenant to the buildings.The contention of the defendant flows along these liens. The structures accepted by teh High Court as buildings within the scope of Section 9 were part of a cattle fair complex. Even the Mandir and the Oushadalaya fitted into the Hat total and the integrity of the whole could not be broken up without violating the long years of common enjoyment. It would also be a double injury : (a) to the defendant; and (b) to the community. The hat or mela could not be held by the defendant if the land were snatched away and the Government could do nothing on the land without the buildings belonging to the defendant. May be there is some sociological substance in the preesentation but the broader purpose of the section cannot be sacrificed to the marginal cases like the present. The larger objectivfe, is to settle with the former intermediary only such land as is strictly appurtenant to buildings, all the rest going to the State for implementation of the agrarian reform policy.24. The key to the solution of the dispute lies in ascertaining whether land on which the cattle fair was being held was appurtenant to the buildings or not on the strength of its use for the Hat. The Solicitor General made a two-pronged attach on the defendants proposition. firstly, he argued that hats, bazars and meals were a distinct interest in the scheme of Indian agrestic life and agrarian law. This right had been virtually nationlised by the Actand only the State or the Gaon Sabha, save where Section 18 (a) to (c) otherwise provided, could hold a fair. A ruling by this Court on an analogous subject lends support to this contention (see State of Bihar v. Dulhin Shanti Devi, AIR 1967 SC 427   relating to Bihar Land Reforms Act)25. The heated debate at the bar on this and allied aspects need not detain us further also because of our concurrence with the second contention of the Solicitor General that the large open spaces cannot be regarded as appurtenant to the terraces, stands and structures. What is integral is not necessarily appurtenant. A position of subordination, something incidental or ancillary or dependent is implied in appurtenance. Can we say that the large spaces are subsidiary or ancillary to or inevitably inplied in the enjoyment of the buildings qua buildings? That much of space required for the use of the structures as such has been excluded by the High Court itself. Beyond that may or may not be necessary for the hat or mela but not for the enjoyment of the chabutras as such. A hundred acres may spread out in front of a club house for various games like golf. But all these abundant acres are unnecessary for nor indidental to the enjoyment of the house in any reasonable manner. It is confusion to miss the distinction, fine but real.27. In short, the touchstone of appurtenance is dependence of the building on what appertains to it for its use as a building. Obviously, the hat, bazar or mela is not an appurtenance to the building. The law thus leads to the clear conclusion that even if the buildings were used and enjoyed in the past with the whole stretch of vacant space for a hat or mela, the land is not appurtenant to the pricnipal subject granted by section 9, viz. buildings.28. This conclusion is inevitable, although the contrary arguments may be ingenious. What the High Court has granted, viz., 5 yards of surrounding space, is sound in law although based on guess-work in fact.26. Appurtenance in relation to a dwelling or to a school, college ....... includes all land occupied therewith and used for the purposes thereof (Words and Phrases Legally Defined - Butterwords, 2nd Edn. ). The word appurtenances has a distinct and definite meaning ..... Prima facie it imports nothing more than what is strictly appertaining to the subject-matter of the devise or grant, and which would, in truth, pass without being specially mentioned! Ordinarily, what is necessary for the enjoyment and has been used for the purpose of the building, such as easements, alone will be appurtenant. Therefore, what is necessary for the enjoyment of the building is alone covered by the expression appurtenance. If some other purpose was being fulfilled by the building and the lands, it is not posible to content that those lands are covered by the expression appurtenances includes all the incorporeal hereditaments attached to the land granted or demised, such as rights of way, of common.... but it does not include lands in addition to that granted. (Words and Phrases, supra)26. Appurtenance in relation to a dwelling or to a school, college ....... includes all land occupied therewith and used for the purposes thereof (Words and Phrases Legally Defined - Butterwords, 2nd Edn. ). The word appurtenances has a distinct and definite meaning ..... Prima facie it imports nothing more than what is strictly appertaining to the subject-matter of the devise or grant, and which would, in truth, pass without being specially mentioned! Ordinarily, what is necessary for the enjoyment and has been used for the purpose of the building, such as easements, alone will be appurtenant. Therefore, what is necessary for the enjoyment of the building is alone covered by the expression appurtenance. If some other purpose was being fulfilled by the building and the lands, it is not posible to content that those lands are covered by the expression appurtenances includes all the incorporeal hereditaments attached to the land granted or demised, such as rights of way, of common.... but it does not include lands in addition to that granted. (Words and Phrases, supra)