TMI Blog1987 (4) TMI 484X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hin the local limits of whose jurisdiction the land was situate. Family holding was defined as meaning land equal to six standard acres. Small holder was defined to mean a land owner owning land not exceeding two basic holdings whose total net annual income including the income from such land did not exceed one thousand two hundred rupees. Standard acre was defined to mean one acre of the first class of land or an extent equivalent thereto consisting of any one or more classes of land specified in Part A of Schedule 1 determined in accordance with the formula in Part B of the said Schedule. Chapter II (Sections 4 to 43) contained 'General provisions relating to Tenancies' and Chapter III (Sections 44 to 62) dealt with 'Conferment of owner-ship on tenants'. Section 5 prohibited the creation or continuation of any tenancy in respect of any land after the appointed day and barred the leasing of land for any period whatsoever. It was, however, provided that (a) any small holder might create or continue a tenancy or lease the land owned by him and (b) any land owner who was a minor, a widow, an unmarried woman, a person incapable of cultivating land by reason of an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... enancies existing on the appointed day, as soon as may be after the expiry of fifteen months from the appointed day, as soon as may be after the statement under sub-section(1) is filed, the Court shall after such inquiry as it deems fit, determine the lands which will be non-resumable lands leased to tenants for purposes of this Act. (5) x x x x x x x x x (6) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (5), where the landlord belongs to any of the following categories, namely: (i) minor; (ii) a person incapable of cultivating land by reason of any physical or mental disability, (iii) a widow; (iv) an unmarried woman; Then, the application to the Court for possession of land shall be made, within fifteen months from the appointed day or one year from the date on which- (a) in the case of category (i), he attains majority; (b) in the case of category(ii), he ceases to be subject to such physical or mental disability; (c) in the case of category (iii), she remarries; (d) in the case of category (iv), she marries, whichever is later: Provided that where land is held by two or more joint landlords, the provisions of this sub-section shall not ap ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ided that the total area resumed by the landlord does not exceed three family holdings. (3) No landlord. who has been cultivating personally land exceeding three family holdings shall be entitled to resume any land leased. (4) The right to resume land under clauses (1) to (3) shall be subject to the further condition that the land resumed from all the tenants holding under the landlord together with the' extent of land, if any, cultivated by the landlord personally and any non-resumable land held by him shall not exceed three family holdings. (5) In respect of lands cultivated with plantation crops, the landlord shall not be entitled to resume more than one-half of the land leased to a tenant. (6) If more tenancies than one are held under the same landlord, then the landlord shall be entitled to resume land only from tenants whose tenancy or tenancies are the shortest in point of duration: Provided that the landlord shall be entitled to resume lands held by protected tenants only if the required extent of land cannot be resumed from tenants other than protected tenants: Provided further that where such tenancy or tenancies shortest in point of duration shall o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... onditions specified in the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950, as in force in the Hyderabad Area on the 1st November 1956. (11) No landlord who at any time before the appointed day had resumed land from any tenant for personal cultivation under the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, or the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950, shall be entitled to resume again under section 14 any land left with the same tenant. Section 44 provided for the vesting of certain lands in the State Government. Sub-sec. 1 was as follows: (1) As soon as may be after the determination of the non-resumable lands under sub-section (4) of section 14, by each Court, the State Government may by notification declare that with effect from such date as may be specified in such notification (hereinafter referred to as the date of vesting) all the non-resumable lands determined by such Court which are leased to tenants, whether protected or otherwise, and all lands leased to permanent and other tenants referred to in the first proviso to clause (29) of sub-section (A) of section 2 in the area within jurisdiction of such Court shall stand transferred to and vest in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... intenance of the land owner. In other words, the Act while fixing a ceiling on the holding of land and generally conferring ownership rights on tenants, did not altogether ignore the interests of the smaller landlords and did in fact offer some measure of protection to those who desired to personally cultivate the tenanted land. The Act was substantially amended in 1974. 'Basic holding' and 'family holding' ceased to be defined. Ceiling area was defined to mean the extent of land which the person or family was entitled to hold under s. 63. Section 5 was amended and the provisos were omitted. It was however provided by sub-sec. 2 that the prohibition against creation of tenancies or leases would not apply to tenancies created by a soldier or a seaman. The savings in respect of a minor widow or a minor woman under the original sec. 5 was taken away. Section 14 was omitted. Section 16 was also omitted. Section 44 was amended. The new sub-section 1 of sec. 44 is as follows: 44(1) All lands held by or in the possession of tenants (including tenants against whom a decree or order for eviction or a certificate for resumption is made or issued) immediately prior to th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... made by the learned counsel was that the provision for the constitution of a Tribunal consisting of persons with unspecified qualifications in the place of a court was similarly ultra vires the powers of the State Legislature. The third submission of the learned counsel was that s. 47(B) which excluded legal practitioner from appearing before the Tribunals was in conflict with s. 30 of the Advocates' Act and had,' therefore. to yield. It is necessary for us to mention here that the principal Act was included in the IXth Schedule of the Constitution on October 20, 1965 and the Amendment Act of 1974 was similarly included in the IXth the Schedule on September 7, 1974. We do not think that it is necessary to hark back to the decisions of this court rendered prior to the one in Waman Rao Ors. v. Union of India, [ 1981] 2 SCR 1. One of the petitioners who presented his case in person did argue that Waman Rao's case to the extent that it upheld Arts. 31-A, 31-B and 31-C and to the extent that it upheld the validity of the legislations impugned therein required reconsideration. We do not agree that it is necessary either to reconsider or to go behind Waman Rao for the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed in Articles 14, 19 or 31, will become otiose. (3) Article 31 C of the Constitution, as it stood prior to its amendment by section 4 of the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, is valid to the extent to which its constitutionality was upheld in Keshavananda Bharati. Article 31C, as it stood prior to the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act does not damage any of the basic or essential features of the Constitution or its basic structure. (4) All the Writ Petitions and Review Petitions relating to the validity of the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands Ceiling Acts are dismissed with costs. In the course of the submissions, the learned counsel suggested that the 1974 Amendment Act was not a law pertaining to agrarian reform; nor, it was said, was it a law directed towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community were so distributed as best to subserve the common good or that the operation of the economic system did not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment. It was suggested that the 1974 Amendment 'Act far from setting out to achieve these goals set out in quite opposite direction by se ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is livelihood, there is no reason why he should be dispossessed to enable a landlord whose source of livelihood it was not until then to make it his principal source of maintenance hereafter. We do not think that any provision of the Amending Act offends the basic structure of the Constitution. In regard to the constitution of the Tribunal, it was argued that very important questions fell for consideration under s. 48A and it was wholly wrong that the decision of such questions should be left, not to a judicial Tribunal, but to a Tribunal consisting of members nominated by the State Government with no regard for any qualification. Our attention was invited to several decisions of the Karnataka High Court where the functioning of such iII-constituted Tribunals was exposed and castigated. It is true that it was commented in some of those cases that the Tribunals were functioning in a most unjudicial manner. quite often without applying their minds at all to the questions at issue and in some cases, in utter violation of the principles of natural justice. We are unable to see how the mal-functioning of some of the Tribunals can possibly vitiate the provision relating to the Constituti ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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