HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO WRIT PETITION No.19740 OF 2011 ORDER: The petitioners, 26 in number in essence seek a Writ of Mandamus for declaring the action of the respondents in trying to evict the petitioners from agricultural lands situate in various survey numbers of Guntupalli and Gudurupadu Villages of Ibrahimpatnam Mandal of Krishna District inspite of the Judgment rendered in O.A.Nos.1-15 of 2003 rendered by the District Court, Krishna at Machilipatnam, as illegal and arbitrary. 2. The first respondent is the South Central Railway while the second respondent is its Estate Officer at Vijayawada. 3. It is stated that in the year 1975, 600 acres of land has been acquired compulsorily for the purpose of enabling the Indian Railways to establish a wagon repair workshop at Guntupalli, nearby to Vijayawada City in Krishna District. Lands belonging to the petitioners have also formed part of the overall extent of lands that stood acquired by the railways. The land acquisition proceedings have reached finality in all respects. Compensation as per the market value has been paid to each of the persons to whom the land belongs to was acquired. However, the Indian Railways have put to immediate use only 400 acres of land and established its wagon workshop as well as a residential township for use by its officers, employees and workmen. Out of the remaining 200 acres of vacant land, when the petitioners approached the railway authorities for grant of lease in their favour of approximately 100 acres for carrying on agricultural operations under the ‘Gromore Food Scheme’ on payment of license fee, their requests were conceded. The petitioners were required to pay a sum of Rs.2,000/- per acre per year as License Fee. Each one of these petitioners have been granted license over approximately 4 to 5 acres of land permitting them to cultivate the same upon payment of license fee every year. There is no default committed by the petitioners in payment of the annual license fee. However, the Estate Officer passed orders on 18.12.2001, directing the petitioners to vacate the lands without properly considering the explanation offered by them to the show cause notice issued earlier in that regard. Therefore, the petitioners have preferred appeals in terms of Section 9 of Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, by instituting O.A. Nos.1 to 15 of 2003 on the file of the District Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam. The learned District Judge by his Judgment dated 12.06.2007, allowed the appeals holding that the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, would not apply to agricultural lands and that the said act is attracted to only residential premises obtained on lease basis and it does not apply to a premises which has been obtained on license. The learned District Judge has also found fault with the notice issued by the Estate Officer for it’s failure to mention the date of hearing requiring the parties to appear with relevant material etc. However, the Estate Officer has once again drawn a notice in terms of Sub-Section (1) of Section 4 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971, on 06.06.2008 requiring the petitioners to put in their explanation on or before 25.06.2008 as to why an order of eviction should not be made against them. The petitioners filed their initial response seeking further fifteen days time for filing a detailed reply in the matter, but however drawn the attention of the Estate Officer to the Judgment rendered by the District Court on 12.06.2007 in O.A. Nos.1 to 15 of 2003 to which the Estate Officer was a party. Though the petitioners solicited fifteen days time period, but nonetheless, they have not filed the detailed explanation as the railways are deemed to have dropped all further action in that regard after their attention has been drawn to the Judgment rendered earlier by the District Court. However, when the railways deployed their Railway Protection Force Constables near about the land, thus preventing the petitioners from gaining access to the land which was licensed to them for cultivation, they filed this writ petition seeking the relief sought noticed supra. 4. The Divisional Engineer (East) South Central Railway, Vijayawada has filed a detailed counter affidavit in the matter. It is pointed out that after acquiring 610 acres of land for construction of railway wagon workshops, in all 105 acres of land has been licensed for the purpose of cultivation by granting individual licenses over small extents of 4/5 acres in favour of the petitioners herein. The license was required to be renewed each year. But however, no such renewal of license has been accorded. It is pointed out that the petitioners are not in possession of the land as the possession continues to remain with the Indian Railways in as much as the petitioners are only granted licenses to cultivate the land and after the expiry of the period of license, the petitioners have no right of any manner to enter upon the land or seek to cultivate the same and they are liable to be treated as encroachers. It was further asserted that the railways have never dropped the idea of seeking eviction of the petitioners. It is further stated that the railways are now carrying on expansion works of the wagon workshop at Guntupalli Village and this work of expansion is of public importance and such public importance overweighs the convenience or interests of the petitioners in cultivating the land. It is further pointed out that the petitioners, being the former land owners, have been paid adequate compensation for the land acquired from them and the right, title and interest over such lands have vested in the Indian Railways free of encumbrance and when certain extent of land was not put to use very immediately, the request of the petitioners has been conceded and they have been licensed to cultivate lands individually by collecting nominal license fee and they have thus treated the petitioners all through fairly and reasonably, even though the period of license expired during the year 1997-1998 itself and it was not renewed thereafter. The petitioners have filed a reply affidavit and also moved an application to take on record the material to demonstrate that the claim of the railways that the land is required for expansion works of wagon workshop at Guntupally, is not correct and in fact a notice board has been put up near the land in question that it is likely to be used for establishing a Golf Course there and therefore the right of the petitioners to cultivate the land should not be interdicted by resorting to unfair means. 5. The entire issue boils down to this. The petitioners herein are the former owners of the land which stood acquired for purposes of establishing a ‘Railway Wagon Workshop’ at Guntupally near Vijayawada City. After the dust has settled down on the validity of the compulsory acquisition, each of the land holders whose land has been acquired has been paid for its market value. All of them have received the benefit of payment of compensation for the land lost by them. Right title and interest over those lands was validly transferred from them and vested in the Union of India, Ministry of Railways free from all encumbrances. The petitioners or their predecessors or for that matter, any other person who held title to the land prior to its acquisition, lost such a title pursuant to the compulsory acquisition of land resorted to by the State. There was statutory sanction for such an exercise. The petitioners therefore have no right title or interest subsisting in the land in question. They have only an emotional attachment with the land. Even though they have been adequately compensated for the land lost by them, the Indian Railways acted reasonably and fairly in the matter and granted them license to enable them to cultivate the land in question. Each of the petitioners has been granted a license over a specified extent of land. They were required to pay a nominal license fee per acre, per annum. The period of license granted by the Indian Railways expired long back. However, they have been permitted all these years from carrying on cultivation even beyond the licensed period. It is quite probable that the railways may have accepted, without any demur, the annual license fee tendered by them. Now, the railways, plead that for their expansion project they need to resume the land. Therefore, the question that requires to be answered is as to the right of the petitioners to continue to occupy the land in question as a former licensee. 6. The Roman Law, which ultimately stood codified under the Rule of Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century A.D, recognized easements in the name of servitutes or servitudes. While the whole bundle of rights are constituted to complete ownership of the property, so called dominium, whereas servitudes were regarded as fragments of such dominium severed from the original stock, and granted to some person other than the original proprietor in restriction of the latter’s absolute ownership. Such fragmentary rights, or portions of the whole bundle of rights called dominium, were granted in the name of servitutes. From this Roman Law concept, legal systems of most civilized nations borrowed the concept of easements. From times immemorial, rights of easements were recognized by the Ancient Law of England. The earliest definition in English Law of the terms easement described it as a privilege that one neighbour hath of another, by writing or prescription, without profit, as a way or sink through his land, or such like. Ancient history of Hindu Law and Mohammedan Law had recorded the codified rules of easements in various ancient works. With a view to reform the Indian laws, efforts were put in and as a result of the examination by the Indian Law Commissions consisting of Sir Charles Turner, Mr. Justice West and Mr. Whitley Stokes, ultimately the Indian Easements Act, Act 5 of 1882 has been enacted to define precisely the law relating to easements and licenses. The simplest form to understand the easement is to set out that, that it is merely a right annexed or appurtenant to land to utilize other land of different ownership in a particular manner or to prevent the true owner of such other land from utilizing his land in a particular manner or to do something or require something not to be done thereon. In other words, an easement is a prohibitive or restrictive right of enjoyment. For an easement to exist there must be two tenements one the dominant and the other servient owned by two different persons. The piece of land in respect of which an easement is enjoyed is called the dominant tenement, and that over which the right is exercised is called the servient tenement. An easement is essentially a land locked right. All easements therefore lie in grant. No right of an easement can exist independently unless the same has been granted by a deed or word. The essential qualities of easement recognized by Americal Jurisprudence are: a) It is incorporeal; b) It is imposed on corporeal property; c) It confers no right to participation in the profit arising from such property; d) It is imposed for the benefit of corporeal property; e) There must be two distinct tenements called dominant tenement and servient tenement and an easement exits solely for the benefit of the dominant tenement. 7. An easement can be a permanent one or for a term of few years or even for an extremely limited period or subject to periodical interruptions exercisable by certain persons or at certain times. An easement may be conditional as well as limited by time. An easement is in essence a restriction of the natural rights of ownership which a true owner is otherwise entitled to enjoy as incidental to his right of ownership. Thus, easement is recognized as a burden on the owner or occupier of a servient heritage. In juxtaposition, a bare license which does not allow profits arising therefrom, to be shared, confers upon the grantee no property in the land. The grantee has a mere right of possession for achieving the object or purpose of the grant. A bare license whether granted by deed or not and whether it is backed by consideration or not, is revocable. 8. Section 52 of the Indian Easements Act, defined “license” as where one person grants to another, or to a definite number of other persons, a right to do, or continue to do, in or upon the immovable property of the grantor, something which would, in the absence of such right, be unlawful, and such right does not amount to an easement or an interest in the property. It is manifestly clear that every license originates in a grant made by one person in favour of another or a definite number of other persons. By implication a license cannot be granted to a fluctuating body of persons who will not be answering the expression of definite number of other persons. Most importantly, what has been granted was only to do something which would in the absence of such grant be unlawful to be done by the other persons. Equally important to notice is the fact that the person to whom the grant is made, does not acquire any right whatsoever, including easementary right or any interest in the property. It can, therefore, be deduced that a grant, which is called license merely authorized the person or persons to whom the grant is made, a right of possession for enjoyment and hence such a right is not juridical possession but amounts to mere occupation. Possession being a legal concept, one of the most essential ingredients of it is the specification of the actual period of time granted for such occupation. Therefore, a bare license, without anything more is always revocable at the will of the licensor, since the grant itself is limited by a period of time, and the payment of license fee does not by itself create an interest in the license of the property. Consequently, mere acceptance of the license fee even for the periods subsequent to the revocation of the license would not amount to acquisance of the possession of the licensee. It merely amounts to fictional extension of the period of license without in any manner affecting the rights of the owner from securing eviction of the person or persons to whom the grant is initially made. In law, grantor or the licensor is always liable to be treated to be in possession of the land in question all through the subsistence of the license and hence, it would be open to the licensor to re-enter the premises and reinstate himself once the period of license granted by him expires. This power to re-enter or to reinstate himself is conditioned by not using more force than is actually necessary. As per Section 54 of the Easements Act, the grant of a license may be express or implied from the conduct of the grantor, and Section 60 of the said Act sets out the circumstances when a license can be revoked and Section 61 sets out that such a revocation can be express or even implied. Section 62 listed out nine circumstances when a license is deemed to be revoked. Of them, Clause (c) clearly discloses that a license is deemed to be revoked when it has been granted for a limited period and the period expired. Thus, it becomes evident that a license granted for a limited period is deemed to have been revoked upon expiry of the period of grant. Section 63 recognized that, where a license is revoked, the licensee is entitled to a reasonable time to leave the property affected thereby and to remove any goods which he has been allowed to place on such property. What would the reasonable time required for achieving these objectives is therefore dependent upon the facts and circumstances prevailing in each case. No hard and fast rule can be prescribed in this regard. Section 64 recognized the right of the licensee, when he was evicted without any fault of his by the grantor before he has fully enjoyed, under the license, the right which he was granted, to recover compensation from the grantor, for the breach of the grant. 9. It is also appropriate, right at this stage, to notice that the Indian Parliament to provide for eviction of unauthorized persons from the public premises, enacted the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971 (henceforth for brevity referred as “Public Premises Act). The legislative history concerning this legislation has been crisply narrated in paragraphs 6 to 9 of the Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in Ashoka Marketing Limited Vs. Punjab National Bank[1]. 10. It would be appropriate to notice that the expression “Premises” has been defined in Section 2(C) of the Public Premises Act in the following terms: “(c) "premises" means any land or any building or part of a building and includes,- (i) the garden, grounds and outhouses, if any, appertaining to such building or part of a building, and (ii) any fittings affixed to such building or part of a building for the more beneficial enjoyment thereof” 11. Similarly, the expression “public premises” has been defined in the following terms: “(e) "public premises" means- (1) any premises belonging to, or taken on lease or requisitioned by, or on behalf of, the Central Government, and includes any such premises which have been placed by that Government, whether before or after the commencement of the Public Premises (Eviction or Unauthorised Occupants) Amendments Act, 1980, under the control of the Secretariat of either House of Parliament for providing residential accommodation to any member of the staff of that Secretariat; (2) any premises belonging to, or taken on lease by, or on behalf of,- (i) any company as defined in section 3 of the Companies Act, 1956, in which not less than fifty-one per cent, of the paid up share capital is held by the Central Government or any company which is a subsidiary (within the meaning of that Act ) of the first-mentioned company. (ii) any corporation (not being a company as company as defined in section 3 of the Companies Act, 1956 or a local authority) established by or under a Central Act and owned or controlled by the Central Government. (iii) any University established or incorporated by any Central Act. (iv) any Instituted incorporated by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. (v) any Board of Trustees constituted under the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963. (vi) the Bhakra Management Board constituted under section 79 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 and that Board as and when re-named as the Bhakra- Beas Management Board under sub-section (6) of section 80 of that Act. (vii) any State Government or the Government of any Union Territory situated in the National Capital Territory of Delhi or in any other Union Territory. (viii) any Cantonment Board constituted under the Cantonments Act, 1924 (2 of 1924); and …..” 12. From the aforementioned definitions, any land or any building or a part of a building, including a garden, ground or out-house and any premises belonging to, or taken on lease or requisitioned by or on behalf of the Central Government answers the description of public premises. Therefore, land which might be used or capable of being used for purpose of gardening or agriculture also falls within the definition of public premises apart from any building or any affixtures thereof. 13. A Constitution Bench comprising of seven Judges of the Supreme Court considered in Hari Singh and Others Vs. The Military Estate Officer and another[2] as to whether the Public Premises Act will apply to agricultural lands and that question has been answered in the following words: “It was contended that the word 'premises' in the Act would not apply to agricultural land. The word 'premises' is defined to mean any land. Any land will include agricultural land. There is nothing in the Act to exclude the applicability of the Act to agricultural land. Reference was made to sections 42 and 43 of the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887. Section 42 of the 1887 Act speaks of restriction on ejectment. Section 43 provides for application to the Revenue Officer for ejectment. It was said on behalf of the appellants that Article 14 of the Constitution was offended because of the procedure under the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 being available. There is no substance in that contention. Section 5 of the 1971 Act provides only one procedure for ejectment of persons in unauthorized occupation of public premises.” 14. It is relevant to point out that the petitioners herein have taken a plea that the Public Premises Act is not applicable to agricultural lands, while contesting their appeals preferred to the District Court, Krishna at Machilipatnam in O.A.Nos.1-15 of 2003. The learned District Judge has clearly misconstrued the Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in Hari Singh’s as well as Punjab National Bank’s case and he had come to an unsustainable conclusion that the Public Premises Act would not be applicable to agricultural lands and further the provisions of the Public Premises Act would be applicable only when the premises have been hired on lease basis but not when license is granted. The basic premises upon which the learned District Judge has proceeded in the matter is completely opposite to basic canons of law. Ratio behind the Judgment of the Supreme Court cannot be deduced in such an irrational manner. The fact that the Supreme Court had dealt with the case of a lease in Punjab National Bank’s case cannot be construed to hold that the Public Premises Act is applicable only when the premises have been taken on lease but not to licensed premises. Such an approach is wholly impermissible in law. 15. Article 141 of our Constitution has stated in emphatic terms that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all Courts within the territory of India. The law laid down by the Supreme Court binds one and all irrespective of the fact whether one is a party or not to such a lis. The law declared by the Supreme Court in clear terms binds everyone including the State and those who are not parties before the Court. Article 141 brings into sharp focus its expansive and all pervasive nature. The Supreme Court is not merely the interpreter of the law but being a wing of the State, it is a source of law by itself. The ratio and effect of a Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court is required to be ascertained with reference to the questions of law that fell for consideration and decided by the Supreme Court. It is the ratio of the Judgment or the principle upon which the question was decided by the Supreme Court that functions as a binding precedent. Hence, while applying the decision to a case brought before it, the Court which is dealing with the case should be careful enough to try and ascertain the true principle laid down by the Supreme Court. The Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court cannot be truncated into bits and pieces and those bits and pieces should not form the basis for deciding the ratio or principle behind the Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court or for purposes of declaring that the Judgment rendered by the Supreme Court as not applicable. I cannot but help recalling with profit the observations made by Lord Hallsham of the House of Lords in Cassell & Co. Vs. Broome[3], when called upon, in Appeal, to decide the correctness of the approach of Lord Denning M.R. in distinguishing a weighty precedent of the House of Lords, in Rookes Vs. Bernard [1964 (1) All ER 367], to the following effect: “The fact is, and I hope