Case: State Of Bihar Vs. Rameshwar Pratap Narain Singhand Others

1. The common question which arises for decision in this group of cases is as regards the validity of the Bihar Act No. XVI of 1959 (Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act, 1959), in so far as it amends with retrospective effect Ss. 4 and 6 of the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950, to be indicated later, and inserts the new sections, S. 7B and S. 7C in that Act. It appears that sometime after the Bihar Land Reforms Act became law and action was taken under S. 3 thereof by the State Government issuing notifications, declaring that the estates or tenures of proprietors or tenure-holders, specified in the notifications had passed to and become vested in the State, the Revenue authorities started interfering with the rights of those ex-proprietors and ex-tenure-holders to hold Melas on lands of which they were thereafter in occupation as occupancy raiyats under the State and started settling rights to realize tolls from such Melas on behalf of the State Government. Aggrieved by this action taken by the Revenue authorities on behalf of the State Government applications were made by several of these erstwhile intermediaries - now occupancy raiyats - to the High Court of Patna for writs restraining the Government and its officers from such interference with their rights.2. Five such applications have given rise to the five appeals which are numbered as C. A. No. 351 of 1959, C. A. No. 27 of 1960, C. A. No. 92 of 1960, C. A. No. 285 of 1960 and C. A. No. 411 of 1960. The High Court held that in view of the provisions of S. 6 of the Bihar Land Reforms Act (before its amendment) and the fact that the provisions made in S.4 (a) of the Act about the consequences that would ensue on the vesting of an estate or tenure in the State were "subject to" the provisions of S.6, the State had no right to hold Melas on the Bakasht lands of the ex-intermediaries - now occupancy raiyats. Accordingly the High Court allowed the applications and issued writs as prayed for. Against these orders of the High Court the State of Bihar and its officers have preferred the five appeals mentioned above, after obtaining special leave from this Court.3. Sometime after special leave was obtained by these appellants the Bihar Legislature enacted in 1959. the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act, 1959 (Bihar Act XVI of 1959). This Act amended inter alia S. 4 cl. (b) of the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950, by adding the word "Mela" after the words "jalkars, hats" and bazaars" and by omitting the words "subject to the subsequent provisions of this Chapter" in cl. (a) of S.4. It also amended S. 6 of the 1950 Act by substitution for the words "Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act" the words "subject to the provisions of Ss 7A and 7B". Of these S. 7B provides that "Where on any land deemed to be settled with the intermediary under the provisions of S. 5, S. 6 or S. 7, a Mela was being held by the intermediary at any time within 3 years of the date of vesting, the right to hold such Mela on such land shall with effect from such date, vest in the State and notwithstanding anything contained in any law, the State shall have and the intermediary shall not, except with the consent of the State Government have the right to hold such Mela on such land or to do anything which may prejudicially affect such Mela." Section 7C contains provisions as regards settlement of hats, bazars or melas referred to in S. 7A and S. 7B and provides inter alia that settlements will be made with the outgoing intermediary or his heir after application is received from him and if there are several of them who apply for settlement, with the most suitable of them. The Amending Act made the amendments mentioned above, except the insertion of S. 7C, retrospective, with effect from the date of enactment of the parent Act. The amending Act had already been passed, when several other applications under Art. 226 of the Constitution for similar relief against the interference by the Government with the intermediaries right to hold Melas came up for consideration before the High Court. The High Court rejected these applicants attack against the validity of the Amending Act and held that in view of the provisions now made the applicants were not entitled to any relief. Civil appeal No. 574 of 1960 has been preferred by one of such applicants on a certificate granted by the High Court.4. The two applications under Art. 32 of the Constitution were filed in this Court for writs of mandamus against the State of Bihar and its officers restraining them from interfering with the applicants right to hold melas on their lands. Both of these were filed after the Bihar Land Reforms Amendment Act, 1959, had become law.

Reasoning:
That however is no reason to think that this legislation is not also concerned with land reform. It is however unnecessary for us to consider this question further, for whether it is a law as regards land reform or not, it is clearly and entirely as regards acquisition of property. The question of the legislature having attempted legislation not within its competence by putting it into the guise of legislation within its competence does not even arise. The conclusion that necessarily follows is that the amending legislation was within the legislative competence of the Bihar Legislature under Art. 246 of thecomplete answer to this question is furnished in favour of the State if this is a law within the saving provisions of Art. 31A. Art. 31A was enacted in the Constitution by the Constitution (First Amendment Act) with retrospective effect from the commencement of the Constitution. It was further amended by the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, also with retrospective effect from the date of the commencement of the Constitution. This Article, provides inter alia, that notwithstanding anything contained in Art. 13, no law providing for the acquisition by the State of any estate or of any rights therein.........shall be deemed to be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by Arts. 19, 31 and 14 of the Constitution. Is the amending legislation a law "providing for the acquisition by the State of any estate or of any rights therein?" Two arguments have been advanced on behalf of the ex-intermediaries to convince us that it is not such a law. The first argument is that what the amending legislation provides for is not "acquisition" at all within the meaning of Art. 31A as it is not "acquisition" for a public purpose. It has been urged that the purpose is a mere augmentation of revenue.8. It does not appear to us that when the right of holding the Mela is taken over by the State the only purpose is the augmentation of revenue. There is scope for thinking that the legislature believed that melas would be better run and be more in the interests of the general public when run by the State than when they are left without control in the hands of private individuals with whom the profit motive is likely to be the sole guiding principle. It is unnecessary however to answer this question for, in our opinion, a law, may be a law providing for "acquisition" even though the purpose behind the acquisition is not a public purpose.9. It is important to notice that the constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act made important alterations in Art. 31 also. One of the amendments of Art. 31 was that cl. 2 now provides that no property shall be compulsorily acquired, (1) save for a public purpose, and (2) save by authority of a law which contains provisions for compensation for the property acquired and either fixes the amount of compensation or specifies the principles on which and the manner in which the compensation is to be determined and given. Then, Art. 31A provides inter alia that a law providing for "acquisition" will not be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with or takes away or abridges a right conferred by Art. 31. Reading the two articles together as they stand after the fourth amendment of the Constitution it becomes obvious that when Art. 31A speaks of a law of "acquisition" it contemplates a law which may be for acquisition, though not for a public purpose and lays down that even though this will be in violation of the fundamental right guaranteed by the first part of Art. 31 (2) the law will not be void because of suchhas to be noticed that the impugned provisions amending S. 4 and S. 6 and S. 7(b) have been given retrospective effect so that the parent Act of 1950 has to be read as containing on the very date of its enactment provisions in these sections not as originally enacted but as they stood after the amendment of 1959. In deciding whether rights of raiyats were being acquired or not we have to forget what happened in consequence of the unamended S. 6. Projecting ourselves to the date September 25. 1950, when the Presidents assent to the Bihar Land Reforms Act. 1950, was published in the Gazette and reading the Act as containing S. 4 and S. 6 as amended and also S. 7(b) it cannot but be held that what were being acquired by means of these provisions of the amending legislation giving retrospective effect were certain rights of the intermediaries. These intermediaries had not on September 25, 1950. ceased to be intermediaries and the fact that under the unamended provisions of S 6 they later on became occupancy raiyats should not be allowed to confuse the fact that the acquisition of certain properties by the amending legislation being itself with effect from September 25. 1950, what was being provided for was acquisition of intermediaries rights.It was the Fourth amendment which in the year 1958 inserted the words "raiyat, under-raiyat" immediately after the words "tenure-holder". At that time laws had already been passed in most of the States for the acquisition of the rights of intermediaries in the estates; rights of raiyats or under-raiyats who might answer the description" intermediary" were also within the definition because of the use of the words "or other intermediary". The only reason for specifically including the rights of "raiyats" and "under-raiyats" in the definition could therefore be to extend the protection of Art. 31A to laws providing for acquisition by the State Government of rights of these "raiyats" or "under-raiyats". In the circumstances and in the particular setting in which the words "raiyat" or "under-raiyat" were introduced into the definition, it must be held that the words "or other intermediary" occurring at the end, do not qualify or colour the meaning to be attached to the tenures newlycan be no doubt therefore that the right of the proprietor of an estate to hold a Mela on his own land is a right in the "estate, being appurtenant to his ownership of the land; so also the right of a tenure-holder, who it has to be remembered is the owner of the land subject only to the payment of rent to the proprietor, to hold a mela on land forming part of the tenure.It is true that a licence to hold a Mela on anothers land in which no interest is transferred is not an interest in land; but there is no question here of the acquisition of any licence to hold a Mela at another persons land.The argument that the impugned law was not a law for acquisition of a right in the "estate" because the right to hold a mela was not a right in the land must therefore bealso we have to take note of the fact that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act were made retrospective with effect from the date of the original enactment so that we have to project ourselves to September 25, 1950, the date of the original enactment, and consider whether on that date the law provided for acquisition of a right in an "estate". Undoubtedly the "estates" did exist on that date and so the acquisition retrospectively provided for from that date was acquisition of a right in an estate.18. Even if we ignore the fact that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act were given retrospective effect there is no warrant for saying that what was being acquired was not a right in an "estate." "Estate" was defined in the Bihar Tenancy Act to mean "any land included under one entry in any of the general registers of revenue-paying lands and revenue-free lands prepared and maintained under the law for the time being in force by the Collector of a District." It is not disputed before us that in spite of the fact that in consequence of notifications under Section 3 of the Act the "estates" had become vested in the State, these registers continued to be maintained at least up to the date of the Amending Act and even later. The position therefore is that the "estates" have become vested in the State but have still not ceased to be "estates".19. We have therefore come to the conclusion that the impugned provisions of the Amending Act is a law providing for the acquisition by the State of rights in an "estate" within the meaning of Art. 31A of the Constitution and consequently even if we assume that they are inconsistent with or take away or abridge any of the rights conferred by Arts. 14, 19 and 32 they are not void on that ground. The conclusion cannot therefore be escaped that the ex-intermediaries have not and the State has the right to hold melas on the Bakasht lands of which they have become occupancy raiyats under the provisions of S. 6.