Case: Begulla Bapi Raju Etc Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh Etc

This batch of special leave petitions and writ petitions arising out of proceedings underthe Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the Andhra Pradesh Act) is directed against the judgments of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and raise common questions of law. They are, therefore, being disposed of by a common judgment. It will suffice to refer to the facts of Special Leave Petition No. 6794 of 1978, Chinnam Nagabhushnam and others v. State of Andhra Pradesh to bring out the points of controversy in theseJaganmohanrao and Chinnam Sivaramprasad, petitioners Nos. 2 and 3 are the sons of the first petitioner, Chinnam Nagabhushnam. Petitioner No. 2 is still a minor but petitioner No. 3 has become major recently. The first petitioner and the third petitioner partitioned their property by metes and bounds by virtue of a registered partition deed dated 12th of April 1960 and since then they are in separate possession of the land falling in their respective shares. By a second partition deed dated 11th of April, 1969 the first petitioner and the second petitioner further partitioned the properties that fell to the share of the first petitioner in the first partition between themselves. On 10th January 1970 the third petitioner sold an area of 12.00 acres of Pangidigudem village to P. Pattabhi. On 10th of April 1970 he sold an area of 10.22 acres and 10.00 acres of village Pangidigudem under sale agreement Ext. A-9, for Rs. 80, 000 to G. Veeraju and the vendee was put in possession. On 12th of Jun e 1970 the first petitioner sold an area of 22.63 acres of Pangidigudem village to one B. Appa Rao under sale agreement Ext. A-12. Again on 16th of June 1970 the third petitioner sold an area of 8.00 acres of Pangidigudem village to B. Balaram Singh under sale agreement Ext. A-10.The Andhra Pradesh Act came into force on 1st of January 1975 by virtue of a notification issued by the State Government. By April 1, 1975 all the three petitioners filed separate declarations in accordance with s. 8 of the Act on the footing that separated minor sons did not constitute a family unit and their holdings cannot be tagged with the holding of the father and that land transferred to outsiders either under agreement of sale or under gift deed should not be included in the holding of the petitioners. The Land Reforms Tribunal, Kovvur, however, treated the holding in question as the holding of the family unit on the finding that divided minor sons also constituted a family unit, and the part of holding transferred to various persons either under agreements of sale or under gift deed formed a part and parcel of the holding of the family unit. Accordingly, on 27th of September, 1976 the Tribunal declared that the family unit was in possession of excess land over the ceiling limit. The petitioners filed an appeal before the Land Reforms Appellate Tribunal. The Appellate Tribunal, in its turn, allowed the appeal in part. The petitioners still feeling aggrieved filed a revision to the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. The High Court dismissed the same on 7th of July, 1978. The petitioners have now filed the special leave petition to challenge the order of the High Court.

Court's reasoning:
It will thus be clear that the ceiling area in case of an individual who is not a member of the family unit is equivalent to one standard holding and so also in the case of a family unit with not more than five members the ceiling area is the same. But if the family unit consisted of more than five members the ceiling area would stand increased by one-fifth of one standard holding for every additional member of the family unit, subject, however, to the maximum limit of two standard holdings. In view of the explanation added to s. 4 the land held by all the members of the family unit shall be aggregated for the purpose of computing the holding of the family unit. Obviously, therefore, where a family unit consisted of father, mother, and minor sons or daughters the land held by all these persons would have to be clubbed together and then ceiling area limit applied to the aggregate holding. No distinction has been made in the definition of a family unit between a divided minor son an undivided minor son. Both stand on the same footing and a divided minor son is as much a member of the family unit as an undivided minor son. Family unit is not to be confused with joint family.The contention of Shri Phadke is that the definition of various terms as given in s. 3 of the Andhra Pradesh Act opens with the words."In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires."According to the learned counsel the context otherwise requires that the word minor in s. 3 (f) cannot include a divided minor son. Section 4 (2), argued the learned counsel, deals with the ceiling area of a family unit and s. 4 (3) deals with the ceiling area of an individual who is not a member of a family unit. A divided minor son, submits the counsel, is an individual and is no longer a member of the family unit in as much as a partition has not only the effect of division of the property but a complete severance from membership of the joint family. Thus a minor who is separated under a partition deed cannot be a member of the family unit but becomes anorder to attract the provisions of cl. (iv) of s. 5 the petitioners have to establish that the Government by notification has declared a particular area to be a drought prone-area. The petitioners were given an opportunity to pro duce the notification which they have failed to do and now the petitioners seek that they should be given an opportunity to produce the specific notification as and when they are able to procure the same. We are not inclined to give such a blank-cheque to the petitioners to produce the required notification as and when they like. Indeed they should have raised a contention to that effect before the High Court and should have produced the necessary notification but that they did not do. Even before this Court they have not been able to produce the specific notification issued by the Government. Under the circumstances they cannot be allowed to urge this point for want to necessary foundation for the argument. We also decline to accede to their request that they may be allowed to produce the required Government notification according to their sweet will and as and when they are able to produce thenow take up the third ground that the definition of family unit under s. 3 (f), as interpreted by the High Court is violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution. This point is also covered by a decision of this Court in Seth Nand Lal &Anr. v. State of Haryana &Ors.(1) and the Court repelled the argument firstly on the ground that it was saved by the protective umbrella under Art. 31A and Art. 31B of the Constitution and also on other considerations as will be evident from the followinghas be en pointed out that adopting family as a unit as against an individual was considered necessary as that would reduce the scope for evasion of law by effecting mala fide partitions and transfers since such transactions are usually made in favour of family members that normally in rural agricultural set up in our country the family is the operative unit and all the lands of a family constitute a single operational holding and that therefore ceiling should be related to the capacity of a family to cultivate the lands personally. It has been pointed out that keeping all these aspects in view the concept of family was artificially defined and double standard for fixing ceiling, one for the primary unit and other for the adult son living with the family was adopted In fact, a provision like s. 4(3) which makes for the augmentation of the permissible area for a family when the adult so ns do not own or hold lands of their own but are living with the family has one virtue, that it ensures such augmentation in the case of every family irrespective of by what personal law it is governed and no discrimination is made between major sons governed by different systems of personal laws. So far as an adult son living separately from the family is concerned, he is rightly regarded as a separate unit who will have to file a separate declaration in respect of his holding under s. 9 of the Act and since he is living separately and would not be contributing his capacity to the family to cultivate the family lands personally, there is no justification for increasing the permissible area of the primary unit of the family. The case of an unmarried daughter or daughters living with the family, counsel pointed out, was probably considered to be a rare case and it was presume d that daughters would in normal course get married and would become members of their husbands units and that is why no separate provision was made for giving additional land for every unmarried major daughter living with the family. On the materials placed and the initial presumption of constitutionality, we find considerable force in this submission. It is, therefore, not possible to strike down an enactment particularly the enactment dealing with agrarian reform which has been put on the Statutes Book with the avowed purpose of bringing about equality or rather reducing the inequality between the haves and the have-nots, as being violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution simply because it has failed to make a provision for what was regarded as an exceptional case or a rare contingency. In our view, the material furnished on behalf of the State Government by way of justification for adopting an artificial definition of family and a double standard for fixing ceiling is sufficient to rebel the attack on these provisions under Art.fully concur with the view of thePhadke, however, brushed these cases aside on the simple ground that they are not relevant for the decision of the questionwhether the right to live includes the right to live with human dignity, and the decision on Maneka Gandhis case (supra) must be deemed to be the correct exposition of the law on the subject.The contention that life includes livelihood within the meaning of Art. 21 of the Constitution was repel led in these two cases and Maneka Gandhis case did not take into consideration the case of Sant Ram (supra). These cases, therefore, still hold thethe petitioners have been deprived of their holding in the form of surplus land but it was only for the purpose of giving relief to the downtrodden and the poor agricultural labourers. The surplus land would vest in the State and the State in its turn would give it to the poor and the downtrodden and thus such a deprivation will be protected under Art. 39 of Directive Principles. The case of Maneka Gandhi (supra), in our opinion, is not relevant for the decision of the point under consideration.The counsel for the petitioners in other cases adopted the same argument of Shrigiven our best consideration to the questions involved in the cases we find no infirmity in any of the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Act.