Case: Sri Rajah Velugoti Venkata Sesha Varda Raja Gopala Krishna Yachandra Bahadur Kumar Rajah, Venkatagiri  Vs. The State Of Andhra Pradesh

2. The circumstances under which the three writ petitions came to be filed by the appellant may now be narrated. It is alleged that on 10-1-1942, an agreement was entered into between the Rajah of Venkatagiri and one Sri Balumuri Nageswara Rao whereby the Rajah agreed to give annual leases in respect of certain slate quarries within his estate for five years in succession commencing from February 1942 if the Rajah was satisfied with the work carried on by the lessee during the preceding year. It was further stipulated that if the leases were given continuously for five years, then the lessee would be entitled at the end of the fifth year to obtain a lease from the Rajah for a period of 20 years commencing from the termination of the fifth year. On the expiry of the fifth year, however, the Rajah granted another lease to the said Balumuri Nageswara Rao for a short period commencing from February 1, 1947, and ending on November 30, 1947. On December 10, 1947, the said Balumuri Nageswara Rao is said to have assigned his right, title and interest under the said agreement dated January 10, 1942, to the appellant, one of the sons of the Rajah, The Rajah on the same day granted a lease for twenty years to the appellant. On September 7, 1949, the Venkatagiri estate was notified under S. 3 of the Madras Estate (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (Mad. XXVI of 1948), hereinafter referred to as the Abolition Act. On the same date the appellant applied to the Collector for confirmation of the lease granted by the Rajah to him. Nothing appears to have happened until February 12, 1952, when a notice was issued from the office of the Board of Revenue (Andhra) calling upon the appellant to show cause within two months from the date of receipt of that notice as to why the lease should not be terminated without any compensation under the second proviso to S. 20(1) of the Abolition Act. The appellant showed cause which apparently did not satisfy the said authorities. Instructions appear to have been issued to the manager of the Venkatagiri estate requiring him to take over possession of the slate quarries which were then being worked by the appellant immediately after the expiry of two months notice issued to him. The appellant promptly filed a Writ Petition No. 287 of 1952 in the Madras High Court praying for the issue of a writ in the nature of a writ of mandamus directing the Madras State to forbear from terminating the leasehold right of the petitioner in the slate quarries and from interfering with his possession and working of the slate quarries and other ancillary reliefs. The writ petition having come up for hearing before Umamaheswaram J., the learned Judge on July 18, 1955, and an order directing the Government to hold an enquiry under S. 20 of the Abolition Act and decide whether the lease had been granted prior or subsequent to July 1, 1945. The order required the Government to hold that enquiry and pass the appropriate orders within three months from the date of that order. The Board of Revenue caused an enquiry to be made by the Director of Settlements who, after taking evidence, oral and documentary, made his report to the Board of Revenue. The Board of Revenue submitted a report to the Government on October 20, 1955, and the Government after considering the Boards report instructed the latter to dispose of the case on merits. Thereupon, the board of Revenue passed an order on December 27, 1955, declaring that the lease to the appellant had been granted subsequent to July 1, 1945, and that, as the lease was for a period exceeding one year, it was not enforceable against the Government, according to the second proviso to S.(1) of the Abolition Act. On that finding the Board of Revenue declined to ratify the lease and terminated it under the powers delegated to it under the Rules framed under the Abolition Act. The Board of Revenue also directed the Collector to take possession of the slate quarries from the appellant. The appellant promptly filed Writ Petition No. 1 of 1956 praying for the issue of a writ of Mandamus directing the State of Andhra Pradesh to forbear from terminating his leasehold right in the slate quarries. He filed another petition, being Writ Petition No, 19 of 1957, for the issue of a writ of Certiorari to quash the order made by the Board of Revenue on December 27, 1955.3. In the meantime on September 21, 1955, the appellant had applied to the Board of Revenue, Andhra for renewal of the lease under R. 47 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1949. That application was dismissed on May 23, 1957. The appellant thereupon filed a Writ Petition No. 470 of 1957 for quashing the last mentioned order passed by the Board of Revenue or, in the alternative, for the issue of a writ of Mandamus directing the State of Andhra Pradesh to issue a fresh lease in accordance with R. 47 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1949. All these writ petitions were heard together and were disposed of by a common judgment against which these appeals have been filed.

Court's reasoning:
We do not think that the rule in any way impairs the correctness of the Madras decision. It will be noticed that the rule only indicates the authority who is to decide whether the right falling under the second proviso should be terminated or allowed to continue. It does not purport to lay down the manner in which such termination is to be brought about. In other words, that rule does not, in terms, attract the operation of the third proviso at all. Even if that rule has the effect contended for, it cannot, in our view, change the meaning of S. 20 which we gather on a true construction thereof.8. In our view the scheme of the Act is to render ineffective all rights created after July 1, 1945, for a period exceeding one year. In one view of the matter it may well be taken as meaning that the creation of rights after July 1, 1945, is, by the force of the second proviso itself, void as against the Government without any further necessity for any overt act to be done by the Government to avoid the same. In that sense the second proviso would be a self contained provision and the aid of the third proviso would be wholly uncalled for. But assuming that the effect of the second proviso is to make the rights created after July 1, 1945, only voidable and not void, all that follows is that the Government must do something to avoid them. There is no warrant for saying that the avoidance must be under the terms of the third proviso. If the third proviso at all applied to rights created after July 1, 1945, then the second proviso would be otiose and need not have been enacted at all. In our opinion the third proviso deals with the termination of rights created before July 1, 1945. The second proviso makes rights created after July 1, 1945, unenforceable as against the Government. The reason for conferment of such an unconditional right on the Government is well known, for it was on that crucial date that the party which came into power later declared its intention to abolish all zemindaries and intermediary interest in land. The second proviso was enacted to nullify the creation of rights in anticipation of the impending legislation and hence it was made unconditional.If any condition was intended to be superimposed on the right of the Government to terminate the rights created after July 1, 1945, one would have expected those conditions to be mentioned in the second proviso itself. In our opinion, there is no substance in the principal point urged by learned counsel appearing for the appellant beforeargument is wholly untenable. That rule provides that a mining lease granted by a private person shall be subject to certain conditions therein specified. The first condition thus laid down is that the term of the lease should be renewed at the option of the lessee for one period not exceeding the duration of the original lease.The effect of this rule is, as it were, to insert statutorily some new terms in the lease itself. In other words, this rule does not do anything more than add some terms to the lease. When, however, the lease is determined under the second proviso, these terms must also fall withmay be conceded that normally this is the correct approach to the problem, but the argument loses much of its force, when we advert to the provisions of Arts. 31 (6) and 31B of the Constitution of India read with the Ninth Schedule thereto. Those provisions proceed on the assumption that certain laws passed under the Government of India Act, 1935 did offend S. 299 of that Act and expressly save those Acts. The Abolition Act is one of the Acts included in the Ninth Schedule and is protected by Art. 31B. In the circumstances, the court must interpret the Abolition Act as it finds it by giving the ordinary and natural meaning to the words used by the Madras legislature and uninfluenced by any pre-conceived notion as to validity of the Abolition Act.