Case: State Of Haryana Etc Vs. Sampuran Singh Etc

C.A. 123 of2023 of 1972: The facts in this appeal are different but the point of law involved is identical. In both the cases the State of Haryana has come up to this Court in appeal, the former by certificate under Art. 133(1)(c) and the latter by special leave granted by this Court. Anyway, in C.A. 2023 of 1972, respondent no. 1 owned 86 odd ordinary acres of land on April 15, 1953 when the Act came into force. After the commencement of the Act he inherited nearly 30 ordinary acres and thus he held well above the permissible area an d ceased to be a small land owner. Around the year 1957 he transferred 167 bighas of land to respondents nos. 3 to 6 pursuant to a Civil Court decree passed in 1957 in favour of his sons and wife. We may mention here, parenthetically but pathetically, that the weapons in the armoury of large land owners to defeat the land reform law included securing simulactral decrees from civil courts against themselves in favour of their close relations, thus using the judicial process to have. their excess lands secreted in the names of their dear and near. This invited legislative attention and an amendment of the Act was made viz., s. 10A whereby decrees and orders of courts were to be ignored in dealing with surplus lands. Thus, the Collector ignoring the transfer of 167 bighas of land by respondent no. 1 (which resulted ill civil court decrees of 1957 in favour of his sons and wife declared 38.41 ordinary acres as surplus with respondent no. 1. The statutory remedies did not see the first respondent (writ petitioner) safe ashore and so he sought harbourage by moving the High Court under Art. 26 where he urged that the land inherited by him and later transferred to his sons and wife were not hit by s. 10A and s. 19B of the Act He succeeded in the Court in view of a certain strict construction adopted by the Court and the State has come up in appeal challenging the soundness of the High Courts approach.

Court's reasoning:
The thrust of s. 1 9-B is that even if the source of the excess area is inheritance, bequest of gift, the capacity to own is conditioned by the permissible limit. Section 10-A does not militate against this mandate of s. 19-B. Indeed, s. 19-B had to be enacted because the High Court took the view that area which became surplus subsequent to April 15, 1953 was not hit by the ceiling set and land acquired by an heir by inheritance is saved from utilisation by the State. Section 10-(a) is wide in its terms and encompasses all surplus area, howsoever obtained. Even s. 10A(b) strikes not discordant note. All that it says and means is that lands acquired by an heir by inheritance are saved in so far as dispositions of such lands are concerned. T he drafting of the saving clause is cumbersome but the sense is and, having regard to the conspectus, can only be that although in the hands of the propositus, it is surplus land, if among the heirs it is not, then their transfers will not be affected by the interdict of s. 10-A(a) the sins of the father shall not set the teeth of the children on edge. If the heirs are otherwise small holders, the fact that their father was a large owner will not deprive the former of their heritage , if it is less than the permissiblesee no conflict between s. 10-A and 19B. Assuming some inconsistency, primacy goes to s. 19B which effectuates the primary object. It is settled law that Courts should favour an interpretation that promotes the general purpose of an Act rather than one that does not.Counsel for the respondents adopted the arguments which found favour with the High Court and pressed two points. The scheme of the Act, according to the learned Judges, was to see that no one held in excess of the permissible area and since by the gift to the son or wife the latter had only lands within permissible limits, there was no frustration of the policy of the law This reasoning is repugnant to the basic scheme because the surplus pool will be adversely affected if gifts and other transfers which will skim off surplus were to be allowed. Indeed, the flaw in the High Courts argument is that if it were allowed to prevail, there will be no surplus land at all, every large holder being free to screen his surplus in the names of his with and kin or servants or reliable friends, by going through alienatory exercises. A legislation which has provided for ignoring decrees diminishing surplus lands and has otherwise prevented the escape of excess area by voluntary transfers, cannot conceivably be intended to permit inheritedsecond argument which appealed to the High Court is a little curious, and somewhat difficult to follow . Section 19-B directs the owner who, by inheritance, comes to own an excess area, to make a declaration of his lands within a prescribed time. This does rot mean that the time lag is statutorily given for executing gifts and transfers to def eat the law itself. Such a conclusion would be obviously absurd. What is intended is to give some time to the, heir to ascertain the assets he has inherited, make the choice of his reserved area which he likes to keep and make the necessary declaration. A processual facility cannot be converted into an opportunity to pervert and to thwart the substantive object of the law. After all, courts, faced with special case situations, have creatively to interpretfeel that when economic legislation in the implementation of Part lV of the Constitution strikes new ground and takes liberties with old jurisprudence, there looms an interpretation problem of some dimensions which Indian jurists will have to tackle. The genre of agrarian reform laws, with special constitutional status, as it were, warrants interpretative skills which will stifle evasive attempts, specially by way of gifts and bequests and suspect transfers. Here ss. 10-A, 19-A and 19B, inter alia, strike at these tactics.