Case: Union Of India Vs. Jubbi And Dunia, Etc

1. The Himachal Pradesh State legislature passed the Himachal Pradesh Abolition of Big Landed Estates and Land Reforms Act, 1953 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) on June 17, 1953 and the Act was brought into force with effect from January 26, 1955. The validity of the Act was thereafter successfully impugned (cf. Shri Vinod Kumar v. State of Himachal Pradesh, 1959 Supp (1) SCR 160: (AIR 1959 SC 223  ). The Parliament then passed the Validating Act, 56 of 1958. That Act was itself then challenged in Jadab Singh v. Himachal Pradesh Administration, 1960-3 SCR 755  : (AIR 1960 SC 1008  ) but the challenge was rejected and the Act since then remains on the statute book as a valid piece of legislation2. On June 4, 1959 the respondent made an application under S. 11 of the Act for acquiring proprietary rights in the lands set out therein claiming to be the cultivating tenant of those lands and produced a copy of Jamabandhi in support of his claim. He stated that he was the tenant of the Union of India in respect of the said lands, that he was cultivating the said lands, that he was paying Rs. 35/5/- annually as rent and Rs. 23/8/- as annual land revenue and other rates and cesses assessed on the said lands and that he was willing to pay compensation as provided by the Act. On November 26, 1959 the Forest Department on behalf of the Union filed objections alleging that the application was incompetent, that the said lands formed part of the protected forest, that the relationship between the respondent and the Union was not that of landlord and tenant, that the Union being the paramount owner could not be characterised as landlord qua the respondent, that a number of trees stood on the said lands, that the respondent was merely a lessee of the said lands which were a forest area, that the entries in the revenue record in respect of the said lands were incorrect and could not be relied on in an application under Section 11 and consequently the Compensation Officer, Mahasu, had no jurisdiction to grant. The Compensation Officer held that the said area was not a forest area that there were no trees on the said lands as alleged and that since the respondent was mentioned as an occupancy tenant in the Jamabandhi he was entitled to proprietary rights in the said ends on his paying compensation which he fixed at Rs. 76.40nP. The Forest Department thereupon filed an appeal before the District Judge, Mahasu, principally on the ground that the Compensation Officer had not followed the procedure laid down in the Act and had not given to the Forest Department reasonable opportunity to put for ward its case. The Forest Department did not dispute in the said appeal that the appellant held the said lands as a tenant of the Government. On July 26, 1960 the District Judge allowed the appeal and remanded the case to the Compensation Officer directing him to raise proper issues and decide the matter in accordance with law. Accordingly, the Compensation Officer raised four issues, viz., whether there were trees on the said lands, whether the lands formed part of the forest, whether the respondent was a tenant in respect of the said lands and whether there was any impediment in the way of granting proprietary rights to him. The Compensation Officer held that the respondent was a tenant, that there was no impediment in granting proprietary rights to him and allowed once again the respondents application. The appeal by the Union against the said order before the District Judge failed. The District Judge held that the respondent was the tenant of the Union and that the Act applied to the said lands as also to the Union. The Union filed a Second Appeal before the Judicial Commissioner challenging the correctness of the District Judges said order. Both the Compensation Officer and the District Judge having held on the strength of the Jamabandhi that the respondent was the occupancy tenant in respect of the said lands, the only questions raised in the Second Appeal were (1) that the Act did not bind the Union or the State Government and (2) that the respondents application under S. 11 could not lie against the Union in respect of lands owned by it. The Judicial Commissioner followed the ratio laid down in Director of Rationing and Distribution v. Corporation of Calcutta, l961 (1) SCR 158: (AIR 1960 SC 1355  ) which was the law then prevailing and in view of that decision posed the question whether the Act applied to and was binding on the Union. He held that though the Act did not contain any express provision to that effect, an examination of Sections 11, 15, 27 and 54 showed that the Act applied to Government land and was by necessary implication binding on the Union. He observed that the object of the Act and the acquisition of right, title and interest of the land owner in the land of any tenancy held under him by a tenant was that such interest should ultimately be transferred to the tenant. He held that on a consideration of the relevant provisions of the Act"the conclusion to which I have been driven is that by necessary implication the Act binds the Government and an application under Section 11 of the Act by a tenant is competent in respect of land held by him under the Government."In that view he dismissed the Unions appeal. The Union of India filed this appeal after obtaining certificate under Art. 133(1) (c) of the Constitution. After this appeal had gone on for some time we felt that as it involved a question of some public importance it was desirable that we should have the assistance of some senior counsel. We accordingly directed the Registrar to appoint a Senior Counsel amicus curiae. Accordingly, Mr. D. R. Prem appeared before us. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance rendered by him.

Reasoning: ut before we do that it would be expedient to clear the ground regarding the question of the applicability of statutes on the State and its immunity, if any, from such statutes10. The contention, however, was that these three ways of abolishing the landowners interest and transferring in two out of these three methods of the proprietary rights to the tenants suggest that the Act was not intended to affect the land owned or held by the Union or the State Government. This contention cannot be accepted, for, there is nothing in these provisions suggestive of their being not applicable to the State or of any distinction between the lands owned and held by citizens and lands owned and held by the State. There can therefore be no room for any assumption that the legislature had in mind any such discrimination between the State and the citizens11. Mr. Ganapathy Iyer drew our attention to Sections 48 and 54 (1) (g) also but we fail to see how they can be relevant for finding out whether the State is by implication exempted from the operation of the Act12. It is clear that the object of the Act was to abolish big landed estates and alleviate the conditions of occupancy tenants by abolishing the proprietary rights of the landowners in them and vesting such rights in the tenants. That being the paramount object of the legislature it is hardly likely that it would make any discrimination between the State and the citizen in the matter of the application of the Act. This is especially so because if such a discrimination were to be brought about through a construction suggested by the State it would result in an anomaly in the sense that whereas occupancy tenants of lands owned by citizens would have the benefit of such a beneficent legislation occupancy tenants of lands owned and held by the State would not got such benefit. An intention to briny about such a discrimination against the latter class of tenants cannot be attributed to the legislature whose avowed object was to do away in the interest of social and economic justice landlordism in the State. In view of the decision in 1967-2 SCR 170  : (AIR 1967 SC 997  ) (supra) the State cannot also claim exemption on the ground only that the Act does not expressly or by necessary implication make it binding on the StateTherefore, the normal construction, that an enactment applies to citizens as well as to the State unless it expressly or by necessary implication exempted the State from its operation, steered clear of all the anomalies and was consistent with the philosophy of equality enshrined in the Constitution.The position now therefore is that a statute applies to State as much it does to a citizen unless it expressly or by necessary implication exempts the State from its operation5. It is conceded that neither S. 11 nor any other provision in the Act contains any express exemption. Broadly stated, if the legislature intended to exclude the applicability of the Act to the State it could have easily stated in Section 11 itself or by a separate provision that the Act is not to be applied to the Union or to lands held by it. In the absence of such a provision, in a constitutional set up as the one we have in this country, and of which the overriding basis is the broad concept of equality, free from any arbitrary discrimination, the presumption would be that a law of which the avowed object is to free the tenant of landlordism and to ensure to him security of tenure would bind all landlords irrespective of whether such a landlord is an ordinary individual or the Union7. There is nothing in these Sections which would indicate that they or any of them impliedly exempt the State or its lands from their operation. Sections 11 to 14 thus contain provisions whereunder the tenant as a result of their operation acquires the right, title and interest in the land by him as a tenant on his paying compensation to the landowner as fixed by the Compensation Officer9. A reading of Sections 11 to 27 reveals that they lay down three parts of the scheme of abolition of proprietary rights of landowners; (1) under Section 11 there would be a direct transfer to and vesting of the right, title and interest of the landowner in the occupancy tenant on his paying compensation as assessed by the Compensation Officer; (2) under Section 15 in respect of lands situate in an area specified by Government, there would be a transfer and vesting of ownership of such lands in the State Government and the tenants of such land becoming the tenants of the Government and (3) under Section 27 where the holding is large enough to have an annual assessment of over Rs., the ownership in such lands would be first transferred and vested in the State Government and thereafter by the State Government in favour of the tenant.