TMI Blog1990 (4) TMI 281X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Judges in State of Kerala v.K.C. Moosa Haji Ors., AIR 1984 Kerala 149, Losing the construction argument, the appellant has appealed to this Court. The facts of the case are immaterial for the purpose of this judgment, save to state in the barest outline that the appellant is the Rayon Silk Manufacturing Company registered in the State of Madhya Pradesh. One of its industrial undertakings is located in Bilakootam, Mavoor in Kozhikode District, Kerala State. This establishment produces Rayon Grade Pulp, using Bamboo Eucalyptus and other species of wood as basic raw material. It has a large eucalyptus plantation coveting thousands of acres, maintained as captive raw material for use in the factory. The State says that as a consequence of the Vesting Act, the eucalyptus 8plantation being a private forest and not excluded therefrom is vested in the State with no fight, title and interest subsisting with the company. The claim of the company, however, is that the term private forest as defined under the Vesting Act, excludes the eucalyptus plantation. Private forest has been defined in the Vesting Act as well as under the Kerala Land Reforms Act (Act 1 of 1964) as amended b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rops; (C) lands which are principally cultivated with cashew or other fruit-bearing trees or are principally cultivated with any other agricultural crop; (D) sites of buildings and lands appurtenant to and necessary for the convenient enjoyment or use of, such buildings; (ii) any forest not owned by the Government, to which the Madras Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 did not apply, including waste lands which are enclaves within wooded areas. (2) in relation to the remaining areas in the State of Kerala, any forest not owned by the Government, including waste lands which are enclaves within wooded areas. Explanation: For the purposes of this clause, a lane shall be deemed to be a waste land notwithstanding the existence thereon of scattered trees or shrubs; We may first examine the scope of the definition of private forest under Section 2(47) of the KLR Act. It means a forest which is not owned by the Government, excluding thereby four kinds of areas specified under sub-clauses (i) to (iv). The latter part of sub-clause (iv) contains the words ..... Other areas cultivated with any other agricultural crop . The terms agriculture and agricultural cro ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... As Felix Frankfurter, J. said: Legislation is a form of literary composition. But construction is not an abstract process equally valid for every composition, not even for every composition whose meaning must be judicially ascertained. The nature of the composition demands awareness of certain presuppositions ...... And so, the significance of an enactment, its antecedents as well .,as .its later history, its relation to other enactments, all may be relevant to the construction of words for one purpose and in one-setting but not for another. Some words are confined to their history; some are starting points for history. Words are intellectual and moral currency. They come from the legislative mint with some intrinsic meaning. Sometimes it remains unchanged. Like currency, words sometimes appreciate or depreciate in value . The learned Judge further stated: Legislation has an aim; it seeks to obviate some mischief, to supply an inadequacy, to effect a change of policy, to formulate a plan of government. That aim, that policy is not drawn, like nitrogen, out of the air; it is evinced in the language of the statute, as read in the light of other external manifestations of purpose. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 5.) It is not in dispute that the lands involved in this appeal were all forests as defined in the MPPF Act, 1949 and continued to be so when the Vesting Act came into force in 1971. In Malankara case (supra), this Court was not concerned with the lands covered by the MPPF Act, and denuded thereafter of forest growth and cultivated with fresh replantation. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to transplant the meaning accorded to private forest from the KLR Act to the Vesting Act. That wide concept cannot fit into the new legal source. In State of Kerala v. Gwalior Rayon Sm. Mfg. (Wvg.) Co. Ltd., [1974] 1 SCR 67 1, this Court while upholding the constitutional validity of the Vesting Act has observed that the Forest Lands in the State of Kerala has attained a peculiar character owing to the geography and climate and the evidence available showed that the vast areas of these forests are still capable of supporting a large agricultural plantations. That much is clear from the following observations (at 683): It is therefore, manifest that when the legislature stated in the preamble that the private forests are agricultural lands, they merely wanted to convey that they are la ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Section 3 sub-section (1), private forests vest in Government. Sub-clause (2) however, excludes from such vesting lands within the ceiling limits applicable to an owner if they are under his personal cultivation. Cultivation for this purpose includes cultivation of trees or plants of any species . The explanation to subsection (2) makes this aspect beyond doubt. The lands used for the cultivation of any kind of tree, fruit bearing or yielding only timber or pulp are not vested under Section 3 sub-section (2). The legislature has thus excluded from vesting under Section 3 sub-section (2) the trees of every variety. But while providing for exclusion under sub-clause (C), the legislature could not have again thought of trees or plants of all kinds. It seems to have considered only fruit-bearing trees and not of other species. If the intention was otherwise, the sub-clause(C) would have been in a different language. In our view as a matter of pure construction untrammelled by authority, the words used in the latter part of sub-clause (C) could not take within its fold all varieties of trees and it could exclude only fruit-bearing trees. This is also the conclusion of the High Co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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