Case: Mir Fakir Mohd Vs. State Of West Bengal

The petitioner claims himself to be an intermediary. The High Court has held (reversing the judgments of the courts below) that a cultivated bamboo garden would fall within the definition of Agricultural land in Section 2(b) of the Act and cannot in any view be called an orchard with in the purview of Section 6(1) (f) of the Act. It further held that a banana plantation is not an orchard because banana plants are not fruit trees

Reasoning: We are unable to accept the contention canvassed on behalf of theview of clause (p) of Section 2 of the Act, it will not be wrong to look to this definition in the Land Reforms Act, for guidance. This definition, it will be seen, substantially conforms to the dictionary meaning of the term orchard. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the modern connotation of orchard is "an enclosure with fruit trees", or "an enclosure for the cultivation of fruit trees". Websters New World Dictionary, also, gives its meaning as "an area of land, generally enclosed, devoted to the cultivation of fruit trees, nut trees, ". Thus, the existence of cultivated fruit trees on a compact area, is central to the connotation of orchard. The question before us, therefore, resolves into the issue, whether a banana plant is a tree ? A tree, according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, is "a perennial plant having awoody main stem or trunk (which usually develops wood branches at some distance from the ground), and growing to a considerable height.Thus, for a plant to come within the connotation of tree, it must have two essential characteristics: (a) It must be perennial and not seasonal; and (b) Its main stem must be woody and not herbacious orbanana plant lacks both these characteristics. It is not a perennial plant, but is more in the nature of a seasonal crop lasting for one or one and a quarter years. Once the plant yields fruit, it becomes useless and does not yield any further fruit. Further, its stem is not woody but fleshy orplant, according to Websters Dictionary, is "aperennial herb of the genus Musa plant with soft herbacious stalk". Oxford Dictionary, no doubt, loosely describes it as abelonging to the genus Musa sapientum, but it also concedes that it has no woody stem or trunk but only a soft herbacious stalk. The Websters Dictionary appears to be more correct w hen it uses the wordfor a bananaconsidered, a banana plant cannot be regarded as a fruit tree. Therefore, a banana plantation is not an orchard within the contemplation of Section 6(1) (f) of the Act.