TMI Blog1996 (9) TMI 610X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t No.241 of 1974 in the Court of Subordinate Judge at Trivandrum for partition of respondents, 5/6th share in the plaint schedule properties and for recovering the same from original appellant-defendant no.2 and his wife original appellant-defendant no. 1 with past and future mesne profits. The respondent-plaintiffs' case in short was that the suit properties originally belonged to one Krishna Pillai Madhavan Pillai. Said Madhavan Pillai by a settlement Deed of 1945 (1120 M.P.) decided that plaint properties A, B, C Schedule were to remain in possession and enjoyment of Shri Madhavan Pillai, his wife parvathi Amma and for the benefit of their children and said Parvathi Amma had to remain in possession as life estate holder. That said Madhavan Pillai died in 1955 and his widow parvathi Amma and his son Krishnan Nair succeeded to his properties. That Kerala Agrarian Reforms Act, Act I of 1964 was brought on the Statute Book on 1st April 1964. Said Krishnan Nair died on 4th January 1968. Said Parvathi Amma by a registered deed is said to have leased out her properties on 10th January 1969 to her son-in-law, deceased appellant original defendant no.2. Widow of Shri Krishnan Nair ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... person on the basis of a lease deed executed after the 1st day of April, 1964, shall be deemed to be a tenant if- (a) he (including any member of his family) did not own or hold land in excess of four acres in extent on the date of execution of the lease deed: and (b) he or any member of his family has made substantial improvements on the land. Explanation.- For the purpose of this section improvements shall be deemed to be substantial improvements if the value of such improvements is more than fifty per cent of the value of the land on the date of execution of the lease deed. The original judgment-debtor defendant no.2, that is, is original appellant herein, applied on 8th January 1980 in execution proceedings to get a fresh reference to the Land Tribunal for deciding his deemed tenancy status under Section 6C of the aforesaid Amending Act. The respondents- decree holders objected to the said application. By an order dated 29th January 1980 the Executing Court rejected the claim of the appellant for a fresh reference to the Tribunal about his status of deemed tenancy under Section 6C of the Act on the ground that this contention was barred by principles of res judica ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... was brought on the statute book subsequently with effect from 7th July 1979. Consequently the principles of res judicata would not apply so far as this new provision is concerned which gave a fresh right to the appellant to contend that he was entitled to get the benefit of the aforesaid rival contention. In the light of the aforesaid rival contentions we proceed to resolve this controversy. It must at once be stated that if the contention of the appellant for getting benefit of Section 6C of the Act is found to be barred by principles of res judicata nothing further would survive in these proceedings and the judgment of the High Court will have to be confirmed on this ground alone. In order to resolve this controversy between the parties it is necessary to note the background facts leading to the enactment and introduction of Section 6C in the parent Act. Relevant recitals in the Statement of Objects and Reason for bringing on the Statute Book the aforesaid provision read as under: Difficulty was experienced by the Government in implementing certain important provisions of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 in accordance with their true spirit and the intention of the Lagis ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... person mist have ben inducted as a lessee under a lease Deed executed by the lessor after 1st April 1964. But the said non obstante clause in Section 6C can at all have an effect of displacing any final judgments or decree against such persons if the substratum of such judgments was removed by retrospective amendment of the Act by insertion of Section 6C. It is now well settled that Legislature cannot overrule any judicial decision without removing the substratum or the foundation of that judgment by a retrospective Amendment of the concerned legal provision. Section 6C as we have noted above, starts with a non obstante clause and seeks to remove the prohibitive effect of Section 74. If that legislative exercise is to succeed effectively then Section 74 should have been either deleted form the Statute Book with retrospective effect from 1st April 1964 when the Kerala Land Reforms Act, the parent Act, came into force or at least from 1.1.1970 when the Amendment Act, 1969 came on the Statute Book and on which date the concerned person who claimed deemed tenancy under Section 6C was required to be in possession of the land. However the Legislature in its wisdom did not think it for, w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e attempt to legislatively overrule binding decisions of courts. A Constitution Bench of this Court in the case of Shri Prithvi Cotton Mills Ltd, and Anr, v. Broach Borough Municipality and Ors. (1970) I SCR 388 speaking through Hidayatullah, CJ., made the following pertinent observations in this connection : When a legislature sets out to validate a tax declared by a court to be illegal collected under an ineffective or an invalid law, the cause for ineffectiveness or invalidity must be removed before validation can be said to take place effectively. The most important condition of course is that the legislature must possess the power to impose the tax for if it does not the action must ever remain ineffective and illegal. Granted legislative competence it is not sufficient to declare merely that the decision in exercise of judicial power or exercise. A court's decision must always bind unless the conditions on which it is based are so fundamentally altered that the decision could not have been given in the altered circumstances. Another Constitution Bench of this Court in Madan Mohan Pathak and another etc etc. v. Union of India and others (1978) 2 SCC 50 speaking th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e binding nature of the judgment of the court cannot be ignored. The same view was once again reiterated by this Court in the case of Comorin Match Industries (p) Ltd. v. state of Tamil Nadu (1996) 4 SCC 281. In S.R. Bhagwat and Ors. v. State of Mysore (1995) 6 SCC 16, a three judge Bench speaking through one of us, S.B. Majmudar, J., made the following observations in para 12 of the Report: It is now well settled by a catena of decisions of this Court that a binding judicial pronouncement between the parties cannot be made ineffective with the aid of any legislative power by enacting a provision which in substance overrules such judgment and is not in the realm of a legislative enactment which displaces the basis or foundation of the judgment and uniformly applies to a class of persons concerned with the entire subject sought to be covered by such an enactment having retrospective effect. In view of this settled legal position, therefore, it must be held that Section 6C could not be pressed in service by the original appellant for displacing the binding judgments rendered by the Tribunal the High Court and this Court in the earlier tenancy proceedings wherein his claim ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e said decision the tenant once again applied for fixation of standard tent before the Court of Small Causes, Bombay as the land by that time had come within the territorial jurisdiction of the Small Causes Court exercising jurisdiction over the Greater Bombay area. Question was whether such an application for fixation of standard rent was barred by res judicata. This Court, disagreeing with the view taken by the High Court that there was such a bar, held that when question of jurisdiction independent of the rights of parties was on the anvil the earlier decision would not be res judicata. It becomes obvious that the plea for fixation of standard rent would furnish a recurring cause of action and though earlier the Court might not have jurisdiction under the Bombay Rent Act to fix standard rent, if by a subsequent decision of a competent court the Rent Act was found applicable the subsequent application for fixation of standard rent could not be said to be barred by res judicata as the cause of action itself would be different in that case being a subsequent and recurring cause of action. The tenant could effectively contend that even though earlier the standard rent could not have ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . Such a judgment would obviously become baseless lacking the very foundation on which it could operate. The very foundation of an earlier judgment can be displaced by either competent legislature enacting a retrospective provision for that purpose or by a competent court deciding the concerned legal provision on which such judgment is based as ultra vires and void. In either case the very foundation and legal substitution of such judgment will vanish retrospectively. In such an eventuality the law could be said to have been totally displaced form the very inception of enactment of such a law and consequently any judgment based on such a non-existing law as found in retrospect could obviously lack efficacy and consequential force of res judicata. Learned senior counsel for the appellant could have got effective help from the aforesaid ratio of this judgment if any competent court had struck down Section 74 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act as unconstitutional and had not resorted to the process of prospective overruling if such competent court could otherwise do so. But such are not the facts of the present case. Section 74 has operated untouched form the very inception when it saw th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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