Summarize the following court judgment. ivil Appeals Nos. 817 to 819 of 1968 and 1456 to 1458 of 1969 From the Judgment and order dated the 19th May	 1966 and appeals by Special Leave from the Judgment and order dated the 7th November 1968 of the Punjab & Haryana High Court in C.W. No. 2205	 2206 and 2215 of 1965 and in C. Revsn. 771 to 773 of 1967 respectively. Rameshwar Dial and A	 D. Mathur for the appellants (In all the appeals) . K. L. Gosain and E. C. Aggarwala for respdt. Nos. 1 (In C.A. Nos. 817/68	 1456 1457/69) respdt. Nos. 1 and 3 (in Cas. Nos. 818/68 and 1458/69) and respdt. No. 1 (In CA No. 819/68). The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA IYER	J. These two batches of appeals stem from the same judgment but raise two different questions of law under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act	 1953 (Punjab Act X of 1953) (for short	 the Act)	 the forensic focus being turned on two different facets of section 18 of the Act. The first set of appeals relates to the right of the tenants to purchase the ownership of the common landlord	 Teja	 while the second set of appeals turns on the principles of compensation awardable to the landlord pursuant to the vesting of ownership in the tenant. Taja	 the landlord	 was admittedly a large land owner under whom there were three tenants. Each of them applied for purchase of ownership under section 18(1) of the Act. The Assistant Collector	 who is the primary authority	 found them eligible	 fixed the price and the instalments of payment	 and they duly deposited the first instalment. The statutory consequence of such deposit was that title to the property vested in the tenants on that date. All these events took place in the early '60s. Had the scheme of agrarian reform in the Punjab been simple and had the virtue of early finality so necessary in such a measure been present	 the law would have operated with speed and changed the rural landscape radically	 instead of provoking a heavy run of never ending litigation. Section 24 of the Act has had this unwitting effect. Too many tiers of quasi judicial review	 too long at each deck and in a system which is slow moving	 tempt disappointed parties to litigate to the disastrous end. Such a statutory creation	 calculated to give ultimate justice	 is like a Frankenstein 's monster	 the very prolonged over judicialised litigative engine	 bleeding justice to death. A legislature	 with care and concern for the agrarian community should be vigilant enough to design a quick and competent legal engineering project absent by contrast in most land reform laws blessing the rural poor. And it is noteworthy that legal battles are fought largely before Collectors	 Commissioners and Financial Commissioners and then the writ chapter begins. This litigation	 it is worthy of note	 began before the Collector in 1961/62. A fundamental assessment of the comparative economic and social costs of multi decked determination procedure would have induced the legislature to reduce institutional levels of adjudication. This is by the way	 although we strongly recommend that the legislatures do pay serious attention to producing an early termination to land reform reordering by a mammoth and immediate decision making instrumentality. 849 C.As 817 819/68 Shortly put	 and shorn of details	 the simple contention of the appellants in these appeals is that although their prepositus Teja was a large landowner	 on his death his heirs	 the present appellants	 became entitled to shares and	 in this process of fragmentation	 they became 'small landowners ' within the meaning of section 2(2) of the Act. This event occurred after the tenants had been found entitled to purchase from the landowner the lands held by them and after they had deposited the first instalment as set down in section 18(4). The plea is that an appeal is a continuation of the original proceeding and	 therefore	 if there is a change of circumstances in the landlord 's ownership during the pendency of the appeal	 resulting in his legal representatives becoming 'small landowners '	 the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land. Of course	 a tenant of a 'small landowner ' has no right to purchase the land. But	 in the present case	 the landowner admittedly was a large landowner at the time the tenants applied for purchase. Section 18(1) reads	 dropping the irrelevant portions	 thus: "18. Right of certain tenants to purchase land: (1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any law	 usage or contract	 a tenant of a land owner other them a small landowner (i) (ii) (iii) shall be entitled to purchase from the land owner the land so held by him . in the case of a tenant falling within cl.(i) or cl.(ii) at any time	 and in the case of a tenant falling within cl (ii) within a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Act." It is common case that the application has been made in time and that at the time such application was made	 the tenants were competent to buy the land. Section 18(4) (a) and (b) may	 at this stage	 be read: "18(4) (a) The tenant shall be competent to pay the purchase price either in a lump sum or in six monthly instalments not exceeding ten in the manner prescribed. (b) on the purchase price or the first instalment there of	 as the case may be	 being deposited	 the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land	 and the Assistant Collector shall	 where the tenant is not already in possession and subject to the provisions of the Punjab Tenancy Act 	 (XVI of 1887)	 put him in possession thereof. " It is absolutely plain that on the deposit of the first instalment of the purchase price	 the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land. In the present case	 all these happenings had resulted in the respondents becoming the owners. 850 The death of the large landowner occurred pending the appeal. the argument of counsel for the appellant	 which found favour with the Financial commissioner	 but failed before the High Court	 is that an appeal being a re hearing of the suit	 relief must be given to the legal representatives of the original landowner who	 by devolution	 became small landholders. If this contention be sound	 the tenants would have to be denied relief since they would be holding under small landowners. The solitary point which thus falls for determination is as to whether the subsequent event of the landowner 's death at the appellate stage unsettles the right acquired by the tenants or whether the tribunal must uphold rights which have crystallized as on the date the applications were made and	 in any event	 the deposits of the first instalment were made by each of the tenants. We see no difficulty in answering this question against the appellant	 but	 in view of the persistent submission based upon a few rulings of this Court	 the Federal Court and the High Courts	 made by counsel for the appellant	 we may as well consider the question of law 	 adopting an interpretative attitude which will further and not frustrate the legislative will in case there are alternative choices for the Court. Of course	 a construction which will promote predictability of results	 maintenance of reasonable orderliness	 simplification of the judicial task advancement by the Court of the purpose of the legislation and the judicial preference for what it regards as the sounder rule of law as between competing ones	 must find favour with us. A plain reading of section 18	 without reference to consideration of subsequent events at the appellate level	 yields the easy and only conclusion that the rights of parties are determined on the date they come to Court and what is an insurmountable obstacle to any other construction is that once the deposit is made the title to the land vests in the tenant. Agrarian reform law affects a considerable number of people and to keep rights uncertain over a long stretch of time till appeals and reviews and revisions and other processes are exhausted	 is to inject unpredictability of results	 for it is quite on the cards that a landlord may die in the long course of litigation	 or other events may happen at later stages beyond the trial Court. Can rights of parties fluctuate with such uncertain contingencies ? If so	 stabilization of land ownerships	 so vital to the new pattern of agrarian relations	 will be postponed for a long time. Is not the judicial task simplified by adopting the golden rule that the rights of parties must be determined when they seek justice and not when the last Court has had its last say	 long years after the litigation was initiated ? A system of orderliness about rights in land will result from this approach. More than all	 the sounder rule of law as between rival claims to consideration of	 or indifference to	 subsequent events is surely that which excludes the later event factually or legally. Such a reading of the statutory scheme rhymes well with rapid agrarian reform contemplated by the framers. The philosophy of the approach which commends itself to us is that a litigant who seeks justice in a perfect legal system gets it when he asks for it. Rut because human institutions of legal justice function slowly	 and in quest of perfection	 appeals and reviews at higher levels are provided for	 the end product comes considerably late. But these higher Courts pronounce upon the rights of parties as the facts stood when the 851 first Court was first approached. The delay of years flows from the infirmity of the judicial institution and this protraction of the Court machinery shall prejudice no one. Actus curiae neminem gravabit(1). Precedential support invoked by the appellant 's counsel also lets him down provided we scan the fact situation in each of those cases and the legal propositions therein laid down. The realism of our processual justice bends our jurisprudence to mould	 negate or regulate reliefs in the light of exceptional developments having a material and equitable import	 occurring during the pendency of the litigation so that the Court may not stultify itself by granting what has become meaningless or does not	 by a myopic view	 miss decisive alterations in fact situations or legal positions and drive parties to fresh litigation whereas relief can be given right here. The broad principle	 so stated	 strikes a chord of sympathy in a court of good conscience. But a seeming virtue may prove a treacherous vice unless judicial perspicacity	 founded on well grounded rules	 studies the plan of the statute	 its provisions regarding subsequent changes and the possible damage to the social programme of the measure if later events are allowed to unsettle speedy accomplishment of a re structuring of the land system which is the soul of this which enactment. No processual equity can be permitted to sabotage a cherished reform	 nor individual hardship thwart social justice. this wider perspective explains the rulings cited on both sides and the law of subsequent events on pending actions. In P. Venkateswarlu vs Motor & General Traders(2) this Court dealt with the adjectival activism relating to post institution circumstances Two propositions were laid down. Firstly	 it was held that 'it is basic to our processual jurisprudence that the right to relief must be judged to exist as on the date a suitor institutes the legal proceeding '. This is an emphatic statement that the right of a party is determined by the facts as they exist on the date the action is instituted. Granting the presence of such facts	 then he Is entitled to its enforcement. Later developments cannot defeat his right because	 as explained earlier	 had the court found his facts to be true the day he sued he would have got his decree. The Court 's procedural delays cannot deprive him of legal justice or rights crystallised in the initial cause of action. This position finds support in Bhajan Lal vs State of Puniab(3) . The impact of subsequent happenings may now be spelt out. First	 its bearing on the right of action	 second	 on the nature of the relief and third	 on its impotence to create or destroy substantive rights. Where the nature of the relief as originally sought	 has become obsolete or unserviceable or a new form of relief will be more efficacious on account of developments subsequent to the suit or even during the appellate stage	 it is but fair that the relief is moulded	 varied or re shaped in the light of dated facts. Patterson(4) illustrates this position. It is important (1) "An act of the court shall prejudice no one" Lalin for lawyers Sweet & Maxwell. (2) A. I. R. 	 1410. (3) (4) Patterson vs State of Alabama ; 	 607; 852 that the party claiming the relief or change of relief must have the same right from which either the first or the modified remedy may flow. Subsequent events in the course of the case cannot be constitutive of substantive rights enforceable in that very litigation except in a narrow category (later spelt out) but may influence the equitable jurisdiction to mould reliefs. Conversely	 where rights have already vested in a party	 they cannot be nullified or negated by subsequent events save where there is a change in the law and it is made applicable at any stage. Lachmeshwar Prasad Shuku vs Keswar Lal Chaudhuri(1) falls in this category. Courts of justice may	 when the compelling equities of a case oblige them	 shape reliefs cannot rights to make them justly relevant in the updated circumstances. Where the relief is discretionary	 courts may exercise this jurisdiction to avoid injustice. Likewise	 where the right to the remedy depends	 under the statute itself	 on the presence or absence of certain basic facts at the time the relief is to in ultimately granted	 the Court	 even in appeal	 can take note of such supervening facts with fundamental impact. Venkateswarlu (supra)	 read in its statutory setting	 falls in this category. Where a cause o action is deficient but later events have made up the deficiency	 the Court may	 in order to avoid multiplicity of litigation	 permit amendment and continue the proceeding	 provided no prejudice is caused to the other side. All these are done only in exceptional situations and just cannot be done if the statute	 on which the legal proceeding is based	 inhibits	 by its scheme or otherwise	 such change in cause of action or relief. The primary concern of the court is to implement the justice of the legislation. Rights vested by virtue of a statute cannot be divested by this equitable doctrine (See Chokalingam Chetty: P.C.). The law stated in Ramji Lal vs the State of Punjab(2) is sound: "Courts do very often take notice of events that happen. subsequent to the filing of suits and at times even those that have occurred during the appellate stage and permit pleadings to be amended for including a prayer for relief on the basis of such events but this is ordinarily done to avoid multiplicity of proceedings or when the original relief claimed has	 by reason of change in the circumstances	 become inappropriate and not when the plaintiff 's suit would be wholly displaced by the proposed amendment (see Steward vs The North Metropolitan Tramways Company and a fresh suit by him would be so barred by limitation. " One may as well add that while taking cautious judicial cognizance of 'post natal ' events	 even for the limited and exceptional purposes explained earlier	 no court will countenance a party altering	 by his own manipulation. a change in situation and plead for relief on the altered basis. The apparently divergent strains of the several decisions has persuaded us to dilate on this branch of processual jurisprudence. Let us now apply the law to the circumstances here. The legislation we are interpreting relates to agrarian reform	 regarded as the vitaI base to build a (1) (2) I. L. R. [1966] Punj. 125. 853 new social order. The Constitution has stressed not merely the supreme significance of this rural transformation but the fleet footed implementation thereof	 even going to the extreme extent of walling off litigative assaults on constitutionality by creation of the Ninth Schedule and the like. Moreover	 the Act itself takes care to prevent future accumulation of lands or motivated slimming process by transfers	 interfering with the scheme of surplus pool and settlement of ejected tenants and the like. Peasant proprietorship is a cherished goal of the statute and so it provides that even on the payment of the first instalment of the price the tenant gets the title of the landlord. To hold that	 if the landlord dies at some distant date after the title has vested in the tenant	 the statutory process would be reversed if by such death	 his many children	 on division	 will be converted into small landholders	 is to upset the day of reckoning visualized by the Act and to make the vesting provision 'a teasing illusion '	 a formal festschrift to agrarian reform	 not a flaming programme of 'now and here '. These surrounding facts drive home the need not to allow futurism		 in a dawdling litigative scene	 to foul the quick legislative goals. Moreover	 the right of the respondents is fixed under section 18(1 ) and (41 and that cannot be uprooted by supervening circumstances. We are not called upon to mould the relief but to reject the right. We are not asked to avoid multiplicity of suits but to non suit and thus stultify the agrarian law. We are not required to permit the appellate authority to re assess the facts as they stood when the action was brought (that is part of appellate power) but to project the landholder 's subsequent death backwards to refuse a right already acquired. A flash back camera	 in this context	 frustrates forensic objectives. Individual misfortune may be real but larger social changes will claim martyrs in law and in fact. How can we miss the sublime impact of the Passion of Christ for the Redemption of Mankind ? The great fact is that	 if uniformly relentlessly and swiftly enforced	 neither landlord nor tenant can keep more than the 'permissible area '. That is the equity and equality of this agrarian law. We see no merit in the appeals and dismiss them	 leaving parties to bear their respective costs throughout. 1456 1458/69 These appeals raise an interesting question of law bearing on compensation payable to landholders whose lands are vested in tenants and this turns on the connotation of 'similar land ' in section 18(2) of the Act in the context of averaging the price for ten years before the filing of the application for purchase. The primary fact which projects this point 854 Of law is as to whether the purchased land is irrigated or non irrigated for purposes of valuation. We are relieved from the need to investigate the implications of the issue because the factual foundation about the nature of the land in question was never put in issue nor considered in the High Court. Thus the appellants have missed the bus and we cannot hear them on a question raised de novo and demanding enquiry into facts not raised at the next below level. We dismiss these appeals	 without costs. V.M.K	 Appeals dismissed.

Section 18(1) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act	 1953. lays down that	 notwithstanding to the contrary contained in any law	 usage or contract	 a tenant of a land owner other then a small land owner shall be entitled to purchase from the land owner the land so held by him in the Case of a tenant falling within Cl. (i) or cl. (ii) at any time. and in the case of a tenant falling within Cl. (iii) within a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Act. Section 18(4)(a) provided that the 'tenant shall be competent to pay the purchase price either in a lump sum or in six monthly instalments not exceeding ten in the manner prescribed. Clause (b) provided that	 on the purchase price or the first instalment thereof	 as the case may be	 being deposited	 the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land. Teja	 the landlord was a large land owner under whom there were three tenants. Each o them applied for purchase of ownership under section 18(1) of the Act. The Assistant Collector found them eligible	 fixed the price and the instalments of payment	 and they duly deposited the first instalment. After this Teja died. Before the Financial Commissioner	 the appellants contended that on the death of Teja	 they as the heirs of 'Teja	 became entitled to shares and	 in this process of fragmentation	 they became small landowners within the meaning of section 2(2) of the Act and therefore the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land. Their plea was that an appeal is a continuation of the original proceeding and	 therefore is there is a change of circumstances in the landlord 's ownership during the pendency of the appeal	 resulting in his legal representatives becoming small landowners ' the tenants will be disentitled to purchase the land. The appellants succeeded before the Financial Commissioner	 but failed before the High Court. This appeal has been preferred on the basis of the special leave granted by this Court. Dismissing the appeals	 ^ HELD: (i) It is absolutely plain that on the deposit of the first instalment of the purchase price	 the tenant shall be deemed to have become the owner of the land. In the present case	 all these happenings had resulted in the respondents becoming the owners. [849 H] (ii) Where rights have already vested in a party	 they cannot be nullified or negated by subsequent events save where there is a change in law and it is made applicable at any stage. [852 B] P. Venkataswarlu vs Motor & General Traders ; 	 1410	 Bhajan Lal vs State of Panjab 	 Patterson vs State of Alabama ( 1934) 294 U.S. 600	 607 Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul v	 Keshwar Lal Chau ; 	 607 Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul vs Keshwar Lal Chaudhuri and Ramji Lal vs The State of Panjab	 I.L.R. [1966] Punj. 125 referred to. The death of the large landowner occurred pending the appeal. The right of the respondents is fixed under sub sections (1) and (4) of S 18 of the Act and that cannot be uprooted by supervening circumstances. A plain reading of section 18 Yields the only conclusion that the rights of parties are determined on the date they come to court. [853 D] 6 1127SCI/75 848