Case: Tinsukhia Electric Supply Co. Ltd Vs. State of Assam and Ors

is confined only to disputes in four areas specifically enumerated in Clauses (a) to (d) of Sub-section (1) of Section 20 of the Act. These lacunae in the Statute, it is contended, render the scheme of the Act for the determination of the Amount unreasonable and the scheme of the Act in relation to the determination of the Gross Amount, the deductions to be made therefrom and the assessment of the amount payable for the acquisition, unworkable. 49. The Courts strongly lean against any construction which tends to reduce a Statute to a futility. The provision of a Statute must be so construed as to make it effective and operative, on the principle ut res majis valeat quam pereat. It is, no doubt, true that if a Statute is absolutely vague and its language wholly intractable and absolutely meaningless, the Statute could be declared void for vagueness. This is not in judicial-review by testing the law for arbitrariness or unreasonableness under Article 14; but what a Court of construction, dealing with the language of a Statute, does in order to ascertain from, and accord to, the Statute the meaning and purpose which the legislature intended for it. In Manchester Ship Canal Co. v. Manchester Racecourse Co. [1904] 2 Ch. 352 Farwell J. said: Unless the words were so absolutely senseless that I could do nothing at all with them, I should be bound to find some meaning and not to declare them void for uncertainty. In Fawcett Properties v. Buckingham Country Council [1960] 3 All ER 503 Lord Denning approving the dictum of Farwell, J. said: But when a Statute has some meaning, even though it is obscure, or several meanings, even though it is little to choose between them, the Courts have to say what meaning the Statute to bear rather than reject it as a nullity. It is, therefore, the Courts duty to make what it can of the Statute, knowing that the Statutes are meant to be operative and not inept and that nothing short of impossibility should allow a Court to declare a Statute unworkable. In Whitney v. Inland Revenue Commissioner [1926] AC 37 Lord Dunedin said: A Statute is designed to be workable, and the interpretation thereof by a Court should be to secure that object, unless crucial omission or clear direction makes that end unattainable. 50. On consideration of the Statute on hand, it is not possible to subscribe to the view that the impugned law has not envisaged any machinery for the due ascertainment of the sums referred to in Clauses (c), (d) and (e) of Section 9 which require, on such ascertainment and quantification, to be deducted from the gross amount. Section 10 enjoins upon the Government to appoint a person having adequate knowledge and experience in matters reeling to accounts to assess the net amount payable under this Act by the Government to the licensee after making the deductions mentioned in Section 9. Sub-section (2) of Section 10 provides that the Special Officer may call for the assistance of such Officer and staff of the Government or the Board or the undertaking as he may deem fit in assessing the net amount payable. These provisions, contemplate the determination by the Special Officer, who is constituted as a statutory authority under the Act, of the net amount payable. The functions of the Special Officer include an examination of the correctness of all the determinations made by the Government in the matter of the deductions, except where Government is statutorily specially constituted as an appellate authority in respect of certain matters under the Act. The Proviso to Sections 8 and 9 envisages prior notice to be issued to the licensee by the Government to show cause against any deduction proposed to be made under Section 8 or 9, as the case may be, within the period specified in the Provisos. Even after the Government so makes such determination of the amounts which, according to it, are deductible from the gross amount, such determination would not be final. The assessment of the net amount payable to the licensee will have to be made by the Special Officer. It is reasonable to construe that the decision of the Government both under Sections 8 and 9 arrived at, even after giving an opportunity to the licensee of being heard, would not be final, but the final determination will have to be made by the Special-Officer appointed under Section 10 of the Act. Section 10(1) and (2) of the Act must be so construed as to enable the Special-Officer to take into account the determinations respecting the deduction under Section 9 and 10 of the Act made by the Government and take a decision of his own in the matter. The power to assess the net amount by necessary implication takes within its sweep the power to examine the validity of the determination made by the Government in the matter of deductions from the gross amount. This power to determine and assess the net-amount payable by necessary implication cover matters envisaged in Sections 8 and 9. Though only Section 9 is specifically referred to in Sub-section (1) of Section 10, the language of sub-section, (1) and (2) which enable the Special Officer to assess the net amount payable would, by necessary implication, attract the power to decide as to the validity and correctness of the deduction to be made under Section 8 as well. So construed, the provisions of Section 10 would furnish a reasonably adequate machinery for the assessment of the net-amount payable to licensee. 51. So far as Arbitration is concerned, even after the decision of the Special-Officer, there is the further Arbitral forum to decide disputes in respect of the specific areas in which disputes are rendered arbitrable under Section 20. In view of these circumstances, we think the grievance of the petitioners on these points questions are not substantial. The points (h) and (i) are also, accordingly, held and answered against the petitioners.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 0

Explanation:
0[ds]petitioners also urge, in the petitions, a challenge to the validity of the Twentyfourth and Twentyfifth Amendments to the Constitution. This part of the petition, in view of the subsequent pronouncements of this Court on these amendments, does not survive.25. Re: Contentions (a) and (b):The proposition that the legislative declaration of the nexus between the law and the principles in Article 39 is in-conclusive and justiciable is well settled. Indeed that part of Article 31C which sought to impart a Constitutional sanctity, conclusiveness and non-justifiability to such legislative declarations was struck-down in the Keshavananda case. The sequitur is that whenever any immunity is claimed for a law under Article 31C, the Court has the power to examine whether the provisions of the law are basically and essentially necessary for the effectuation of the principles envisaged in Article 39(b) and (c). The observations of Mathew, J. in Keshvananda case 1973 SCR Supp 1 may be recalled:...Whenever a question is raised that the Parliament or State Legislatures have abused their power and inserted a declaration in a law not for giving effect to the State Policy towards securing the directive principles specified in Article 39-B or 39-C, the Court must necessarily go into that question and decide it......If the Court comes to the conclusion that the declaration was merely a pretence and that the real purpose of the law is the accomplishment of some object other than to give effect to the policy of the State towards securing the directive principles in Article 39(b) and (c) the declaration would not be a bar to the court from striking down any provision therein which violates Article 14, 19 or 31. In other words, if a law passed ostensibly to give effect to the policy of the State is, in truth and substance, one for accomplishing an authorised object, the court would be entitled to tear the veil created by the declaration and decide according to the real nature of the law...Chandrachud, J. observed in the Keshavananda case:Laws passed under Article 31C can, in my opinion, be upheld only, and only if, there us a direct and reasonable nexus between the law and the directive policy of the State expressed in Article 39B oro the same effect are the observations of the learned Chief Justice in Minerva Mills Ltd. v. UOI [1981]1SCR206 :...the Courts can, under Article 31C, satisfy themselves as to the identity of the law in the sense whether it bears direct and reasonable nexus with a directive principle.The only question open to judicial review under the unamended Article 31C was whether there is a direct and reasonable nexus between the impugned law and the provisions of Article 39(b) and (c).In the same case, Bhagwati, J. observed:...The point that I wish to emphasis is that the amended Article 31C does not give protection to a law which has merely some remote or tenuous connection with a directive principle....Even where the dominant object of a law is to give effect to a directive principle it is not every provision of the law which is entitled to claim protection.......it is not every provision of a statute which has been enacted with the dominant object of giving effect to a directive principle, that it entitled to protection, but only those provisions of the statute which are basically and essentially necessary for giving effect to the directive principles are protected under the amended Article 31C ....26. The proposition of Sri Sorabjee, in principle, is, therefore. unexceptionable;Apropos of the contention that, at all events, the provisions pertaining to the amount could have no reasonable or direct nexus to the principles envisaged in Article 39(b), but are merely intended to extinguish the legitimate rights of the petitioner-company to receive the price of the undertaking under the 1910 Act, as the law then stood, pursuant to the option exercised by the Board, it would, perhaps, be necessary to ascertain the composite-elements that make for a law of nationalisation and whether provisions touching the quantification of the amount payable for the acquisition are not an essential and integral part of such law.On the contention urged by Shri Rangarajan as to what could be said to survive for consideration under Article 31(2), (as it then stood), if the law has the protection of Article 31C the question that arises is whether anything at all survives for consideration under Article 31, The contention indeed, runs in the teeth of several pronouncements of this Court which lay down that when Article 31C comes-in. Articles 14, 19 and 31 (the last mentioned article as it then stood) go out. This we will consider under point (c).27. It is not disputed that the electricity generated and distributed by the undertakings of the petitioner-companies constitute material resources of the community for the purpose and within the meaning of Article 39(b).In Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Company v. Bharat Coking Coal Ltd.this Court, referring to what constitute material resources of the community and whether resources produced by, or at the command of, private, as distinguished from the State agencies, constitute such resources as the resources of the community, noticed the contention urged in that case thus:...The submission of Shri A.K. Sen was that neither a coal mine nor a coke oven plant owned by private parties was a material resources of the community. According to the learned Counsel they would become material resources of the community only after they were acquired by the State and not until then. In order to qualify as material resources of the community the ownership of the resources must vest in the community i.e. theA law providing for acquisition was not a law forg this argument which suggested a limited concept of Material resources of the Community the Court observed:...We are unable to appreciate the submission of Shri Sen. The expression material resources of the community means all things which are capable of producing wealth for the community. There is no warrant for interpreting the expression in so narrow a fashion as suggested by Shri Sen and confine it to public-owned material resources, and exclude private-owned material resources The expression involves no dichotomy....It can, therefore, hardly be gain-said that the electrical energy generated and distributed by the undertakings of the petitioner constitutes material resources of the community.It is true that if such a relationship is merely remote and tenuous the protection under Article 31C may not be available. The idea of distribution of the material resources of the community in Article 39(b) is not necessarily limited to the idea of what is taken over for distribution amongst the intended beneficiaries. That is one of the modes of distribution. Nationalisation is another mode. In State of Tamil Nadu v. L. Abu Kavur Bai [1984]1SCR725 this Court had occasion to refer to this aspect. It was held:In other words, the word distribution does not merely mean that property of one should be taken over and distributed to others like land reforms where the land from the big landlords are taken away and given to landlesst is only one of the modes of distribution but not the onlyy nationalising the transport as also the units the vehicles would be able to go the farthest corner of the State and penetrate as deep as possible....This would undoubtedly be a distribution for the common good of the people and would be clearly covered by Clause (b) of Article 39.On an examination of the scheme of the impugned law the conclusion becomes inescapable that the legislative measure is one of nationalisation of the undertakings and the law is eligible for and entitled to the protection of Article 31C.We are afraid this contention proceeds on an impermissible dichotomy of the components integral to the idea of nationalisation. The economic cost of social and economic reform is, perhaps, amongst the most vexed problems of social and economic change and constitute the core element in Nationalisation. The need for constitutional immunities for such legislative efforts at social and economic change recognise the otherwise unaffordable economic burden of reforms. The observations of Mathew J. in Keshavananda case on the point are worth recalling:If full compensation has to be paid, concentration of wealth in the form of immovable or movable property will be transformed into concentration of wealth in the form of money and how is the objective underlined in Article 39(b) and (c) achieved by the transformation? And will there be-enough money in the coffers of the State to pay full compensation?...I am unable to understand the purpose of substituting the word amount for the word compensation in the sub-Article unless it be to deprive the Court of any yard-stick or norm for determining the adequacy of the amount and the relevancy of the principles fixed by law. I should have thought that this coupled with the express provision precluding the Court from going into the adequacy of the amount fixed or determined should put it beyond any doubt that fixation of the amount or determination of the principle for fixing it is a matter for the Parliament alone and that the Court has no say in the matter. 1972CriLJ1526It is, therefore, not possible to divorce the economic considerations or components from the scheme of nationalisation with which the former are inextricably integrated. The financial cost of a scheme of nationalisation lies at its very heart and can not be isolated. Both the provisions relating to the vestibule of the undertakings in the State and those pertaining to the quantification of the Amount are integral and inseparable parts of the integral scheme of nationalisation and do not admit of being considered as distinct provisions independent of each other.30. The memorandum of the writ petition contains averments as to the efficiency and public-utility of the services rendered by the undertakings and that on the date of the take-over the market value of the Tinsukhia and Dibrugarh undertakings were Rs. 55 lakhs and Rs. 35 lakhs respectively and that the undertakings were discharging their obligations to the consumers efficiently and satisfactorily. The case of the petitioners is that there was no justification at all for the nationalisation as the undertakings were efficient and fully catered to the needs of the consume7rs. It was also averred that it was the Government and the Board the had come in the way of the expansion envisaged by the undertakings by withholding the requisite permission for the installation of additional capacity for generation of electricity. The Respondents have sought elaborately to traverse these grounds and to justify the measure for nationalisation.We are afraid, the debate whether nationalisation is by itself to be considered as fulfilling a public-purpose or whether the nationalisation should be shown to be justified by the actual effectuation of the avowed objectives of such nationalisation-the choice between the pragmatic and the doctrinaire approaches-is concluded and no longer available. In Akadasi Padhan v. State of Orissa and Ors. AIR1963SC1047 this debate on the philosophy of nationalisation is concluded. It was held:...Broadly speaking, this discussion discloses a difference in approach. To the socialist, nationalisation or State ownership is a matter of principle and its justification is the general notion of social welfare. To the rationalist, nationalisation or State ownership is a matter of expediency dominated by considerations of economic efficiency and increased output of production.......The amendment made by the Legislature in Article 19(6) shows that according to the Legislature, a law rel7ating to the creation of State monopoly should be presumed to be in the interests of the generaln other words, the theory underlying the amendment in so far as it relates to the concept of State monopoly, does not appear to be based on the pragmatict on the doctrinaire approach which socialism, in the United States of America after the hey-days of the substantive due process, the Supreme Court in l963 in Ferguson v. Skrupa 372 US 726 said:We refuse to sit as a super legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation, and we emphatically refuse to go back to the lime when courts used the Due Process Clause to strike down state laws, regulatory of business and industrial conditions, because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.... Whether the legislature takes for its textbook Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Lord Keynes, or some other is no concern of ours.(Emphasis Supplied)31. Equally untenable is the contention based on the assumption that immediately upon the exercise of the option to purchase, the proprietary-rights of the Tinsukhia Company in relation to the under-taking stood transformed into, and was crystalised in the form of, a mere actionable-claim or a chose-in-action and that, therefore, what was sought to be acquired by the present legislative-measure was merely a chose-in-action. It was contended that no public purpose is achieved by the acquisition of a chose-in-action. This needs examination of the legal character and incidents of the consequences that flow from the exercise of the option to purchase under the 1910 Act. The contention presupposes that contemporaneous with the service of the notice on the licensee, the proprietary-rights of the licensee in relation to the undertaking, proprio vigore, get transformed into a mere chose-in-action. This consequence does not flow from the provisions of 1910 Act. In Fazilka Electric Supply Company Limited v. The Commissioner of Income-Tax, Delhi [1962] Supp. 3 SCR 496 this Court, referring to the nature of the transaction emerging from the exercise of the option, said:It merely provides for an option of purchase to be exercised on the expiration of certain periods agreed to between the parties, and Section 10 further provides that in an appropriate case Government may even forego the option. This section does not provide for a compulsory purchase or compulsory acquisition without reference to and independently of any agreement by the licencee.(Emphasis Supplied)In Gujarat Electricity Board v. Shantilal [1969]1SCR580 referring to the legal consequences that ensue by a mere exercise of the option, it was held:...that the right to purchase the undertaking accrues only at the expiration of the period of licence but for exercising that right, the authority must make its election within the period prescribed in Section 7(4) and issue a notice as required by that sub-section....(Emphasis Supplied)That the right, title and interest of the licensee in the undertaking does not get transferred to the Board or the State, as the case may be, immediately upon the mere exercise of the option to purchase is further clear from what is implicit in the observations of this Court in Godra Electricity Company Limited and Anr. v. The State of Gujarat and Anr. [ [1975]2SCR42 . The proposition contended for by the Learned Additional Solicitor General in that case was noticed thus:In support of the contention that when once the notice exercising the option to purchase the undertaking has been served, the licensee has no further right to can on the business, the learned Additional Solicitor General placed reliance on the decision of this Court in Kalyan Singh v. State of U.P....This Court held that the exercise of the option would have no such effect on the licensees right to carry on his business until the undertaking was actually taken over and paid-for. It was held:A licensee cannot be told that he has no right to carry on the business unless a valid purchase is made at the expiry of the period......Admittedly, the undertaking belonged to the licencee and if delivery of the undertaking is to be taken by the State Electricity Board, the purchase price must be paid before the delivery or, there must be a provision for payment of interest on the purchase price for the period during which payment is withheld. Otherwise, the licence will not cease to have operation and the licensee will be entitled to carry on the business.The contentions that immediately upon the exercise of the option, ipso-facto, the relationship between the parties get transformed into one as between a Debtor and a Creditor and that the interest of the licensee in the undertaking becomes an actionable-right, or a chose-in-action and that no public-purpose could be said to be served by the acquisition of a chose-in-action are all out of place in this case.32. It is not necessary, therefore, to go into the question whether a chose-in-action can at all be acquired. Certain observations of this Court in Madan Mohan Pathak v. Union of India and Ors. (1978)ILLJ406SC do suggest that chose-in-action could also be acquired. It will also not be necessary to go into the legal concept of a chose-in-action in Indian law and its distinctiveness from the principles in English law.Williams on Personal-property refers to chose-in-action thus:....another important distinction exists among personal things. Such things are said to be in possession or in action; or they are called, in law French, choses in possession or choses in action. Choses in possession are movable goods, of which their owner has actual possession and enjoyment, and which he can deliver over to another upon a gift or sale; tangible things, as cattle, clothes, furniture, or the like ....The term choses in action appears to have been applied to things, to recover or realise which, if wrongfully withheld, an action must have been brought; things, In respect of which a man had no actual possession or enjoyment, but a mere right enforceable by action. The most important personal things recoverable by action only were money due from another, the benefit of a contract and compensation for a wrong; and these have always been the most prominent choses in action, though not the only things to which the term has been applied....Indeed, in English law the difficulties in the precise definition of chose-in-action arise out of the fact that the meaning attributed to the expression has been expanded from time to time by judicial decisions and the principles pertaining to the concept did not develop on any logical or scientific basis.W.S. Holdsworth also refers to this difficulty in apprehending the precise incidents of the concept of a chose-in-action:It is sometimes difficult to ascertain the sense in which the legislature has used the term chose-in-action we have seen that Bankruptcy Act affords one illustration, and, as we can see from the case of Edwards v. Discard the modifications introduced by the Courts have some times occasioned a similar difficulty. Some of these difficulties might be perhaps mitigated by a codifying Act, for which there is plenty of material. But, it is probable that a branch of the law which comes at the meeting place of the law of property and the law of obligation can never be anything but difficult to formulate and apply.(Emphasis Supplied)(See: The History of the treatment of chose-in-action by the common law:- 33 HLR 997.34. It requires, therefore, to be held that the impugned legislation viz., Assam Act X, 1973, was brought forth for securing the principles contained in Article 39(b) of the Constitution and is protected under Article 31C. The amendment made to the provisions of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910, by Assam Act IX of 1973, amending the basis for quantification of the amount payable in the case of a statutory purchase pursuant to the exercise of the option in terms of the licence would apply to and govern cases of statutory-sales and would not assume any immateriality in this case as the Assam Act X of 1973 is itself-as we have held-a valid piece of legislation.35. We find, therefore, no substance in the contentions (a) and (b) urged by the petitioner.36. Re. contention (C):contention would not, in law, be available to the petitioners inasmuch as the law providing for the acquisition has the protection of Article 31C of the Constitution. The arguments of Shri Soli J. Sorabjee in regard to the alleged illusory nature of the amount presupposes and proceeds on the premise that the impugned law does not have the protection of Article 31C. Now that we have held that Article 31C is attracted, the argument in regard to the alleged illusory nature of the amount does not survive at all.We are afraid, these passages are quoted out of context and, if properly understood, were not intended to support the proposition now propounded by Shri Rangarajan. Indeed in the Keshavananda case itself Chandrachud J. referring to the effect of Article 31C observed:...In fact article 31C is a logical extension of the principles underlying article 31(4) and (6) and article 31A.... The true nature and character of article 31C is that it identifies a class of legislation and exempts it from the operation of articles 14, 19 and 31....(1973 supp. SCR 1 at 995)Khanna J. observed in that case:Both articles 31A and 31C deal with right to property. Article 31-A deals with certain kinds of property and its effect is, broadly speaking, to take those kinds of property from the persons who have rights in the said property. The objective of article 31C is to prevent concentration of wealth and means of production and to ensure the distribution of ownership and control of the material resources of the community for the common good. Article 31C is thus essentially an extension of the principle which was accepted in article, J. said:Article 31C has two parts. The first part is directed at removing laws passed for giving effect to the policy of the State towards securing the principles specified in Clause (b) or Clause (c) of Article 39 of the Constitution from the vice of invalidity on the ground that any such law is inconsistent with or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by Articles 14, 19 and 31 of the Constitution. ...the effect of invalidity for alleged violations of Articles 14, 19 and 31 would vanish so long as the law was really meant to give effect to the principles of Article 39(b) and (c)....In State of Karnataka v. Ranganath Reddy [1978]1SCR641 this Court had occasion to observe:...For the purpose of deciding the point which falls for consideration in these appeals, it will suffice to say that still the over-whelming View of the majority of judges in Kesavandanda Bharatis case is that the amount payable for the acquired property either fixed by the legislature or determined on the basis of the principles engrafted in the law of acquisition cannot be wholly arbitrary and illusory. When we say so we are not taking into account the effect of Article 31C inserted in the Constitution by the 25th Amendment (leaving out the invalid part as declared by the majority).(Emphasis Supplied)In Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Co. v. Bharat Coking Coal Company Ltd.this Court said:...To accept the submission of Shri Sen that a law founded on discrimination is not entitled to the protection of Article 31C, as such a law can never be said to be to further the Directive Principle affirmed in Article 39(b), would indeed, be, to use a hackneyed phrase, to put the cart before the horse. If the law made to further the Directive Principle is. necessarily non-discriminatory or is based on a reasonable classification, then such law does not need any protection such as that afforded by Article 31C. Such law would be valid on its own strength, with no aid from Article 31C. To make it a condition precedent that a law seeking the haven of Article 31C must be non-discriminatory or based on reasonable classification is to make Article 31C meaningless....We are firmly of the opinion that where Article 31C comes in Article 14 goes out....What applies to Article 14 would equally apply to Article 31 (as it then stood before its deletion by the Constitution Forty second (Amendment) Act, 1978).In State of Tamil Nadu v. L. Abu Kavur Bai [1984]1SCR725 on which Shri Rangarajan relied, Fazal Ali J. categorily said:It is manifest from a bare reading of the newly added Article 31C that any law effectuating the policy of the State in order to secure or comply with the directive principles specified in Clauses (b) and (c) of Article 39 would not be deemed to be void even if it is inconsistent with or violates Articles 14, 19 and 31...In the same case Fazal Ali J. further said:...If, once the conditions mentioned in Article 31C are fulfilled by the law, no question of compensation arises because the said Article expressly excludes not only Articles 14, and 19 but also 31 which, by virtue of the 25th amendment, had replaced the word amount for the word compensation in Article 31(2)....(Emphasis supplied)Sri Rangarajan cannot, therefore, draw any sustenance from Fazal Ali J. for his argument.38. The contention of Shri Rangarajan in our opinion, is wholly unsupportable. Indeed, the purpose of Article 31C is, amongst others, to exclude Article 31, as it then stood. The effect of accepting Sri Rangarajans contention would be to let in Article 31 by the backdoor, frustrating the very object of Article 31C and to unsettle the law laid down in a series of authoritative pronouncements of this Court.The contention really, is not available to the petitioners at all.39. Even if the impugned law did not have the protection of Article 31C, a hypothesis on which contention (c) is based, the adequacy or inadequacy of the amount is not justiciable. The limitations of the courts scrutiny explicit in Article 31(2), are referred to by Mathew J. in the Keshavananda case:...the word amount conveys no idea of any norm. It supplies no yard-stick. It furnishes no measuring rod. The neutral word amount was deliberately chosen for the purpose. I am unable to understand the purpose in substituting the word amount for the word compensation in the sub-article unless it be to deprive the Court of any yard stick or norm for determining the adequacy of the amount and the relevancy of the principles fixed byg to what might, yet, be open to judicial scrutiny, under Article 31(b), Shelat and Grower, JJ. observed in the Keshavananda case:But still on the learned Solicitor Generals argument, the right to receive the amount continues to be a fundamental right. That cannot be denuded of its identity. The obligation to act on some principle while fixing the amount arises both from Article 31(2) and from the nature of the legislative power for, there can be no power which permits in a democratic system an arbitrary use of power.But the norm or the principle of fixing or determining the amount will have to be disclosed to the Court. It will have to be satisfied that the amount has reasonable relationship with the value of the property acquired or requisitioned and one or more of the relevant principles have been applied and further that the amount is neither illusory nor it has been fixed arbitrarily, nor at such a figure that it means virtual deprivation of the right under Article 31(2). The question of adequacy or inadequacy, however, cannot be gone into.Justice Chandrachud observed:The specific obligation to pay an amount and in the alternative the use of the word principles for determination of that amount must mean that the amount fixed or determined to be paid cannot be illusory. If the right to property still finds a place in the Constitution, you cannot mock at the man and ridicule his right. You cannot tell him: I will take your fortune for a farthing.