TMI Blog1979 (5) TMI 151X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ms (Fixation of Ceiling on land) Act, 1961 (for short, the Ceiling Act). Presently, we will set out the skeletal facts relating to the civil appeals and the scheme of the Act designed for distributive justice in the field of agricultural land ownership, sufficient to disclose the purpose of the legislation, the mischief it intends to suppress, the reverse effect of the construction put on the key section (s. 22) in the judgment under appeal and the consequent stultification of the objective of the Ceiling Act. While dealing with welfare legislation of so fundamental a character as agrarian reform, the court must constantly remember that the statutory pilgrimage to 'destination social justice' should be helped, and not hampered, by judicial interpretation. For, the story of agrarian re-distribution in Tamil Nadu, as elsewhere, has been tardy and zigzag, what with legislative delays, judicial stays and invalidations, followed by fresh constitutional amendments and new constitutional challenges and statutory constructions, holding up, for decades, urgent measures of rural economic justice which was part of the pledges of the Freedom struggle. It is true that judges are constit ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nder s. 115 C.P.C. Now, the respondents before us in the several appeals are persons whose transfers have been held void by the authorised officer and the land Tribunal but upheld by the High Court on a narrow construction of s. 22 of the Ceiling Act. The alienations took many forms ranging from stridhana to bona fide sale but shared one common attribute that they were executed during the suspect spell, if one may say so, between the date of commencement of the Act and the notified date. The legislature, in its realistic anxiety and pragmatic wisdom, demarcated a lethal zone viz., the period between the two dates stated above when all landholders with lands in excess of the ceiling would desperately salvage their surplus by resort to devices, some bona fide, some not, but all having the effect of frustrating the legislative objective of freezing holdings as on the date of commencement of the Act and seizing the surplus in terms cf the Act for eventual equitable distribution, after payment of statutory compensation. Before embarking on any further discussion of the project of interdicting transfers, as spelt out in s. 22, we may read the provision: Where on or after the d ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ied date. As stated earlier, the Ceiling Act had a chequered-career in court and, indeed, at one stage the whole Act was struck down as unconstitutional. However, now it is immune to attack having been included in the Ninth Schedule and there is no challenge to its vires before, us. On account of extensive mischief done by alienations on a considerable scale calculated to undo the public policy behind agrarian reform the legislature felt the necessity to provide in s. 22 that transfers made between 6-4-1960 and 2- 10-1962 would be void if they defeated the provisions of the Act. In all the cases before us the transfers which have been ignored by the Authorised officer fall within this interregnum. That being admitted, the only question is whether the lethal effect of s. 22 operates only in the case of transfers which are sham and specifically intended to defeat the Act or does not affect transfers which are otherwise bona fide or is so pervasive that if the effect of the transfer is to defeat the provisions of the Act, whatever the intent of the parties, the transfer is void and can be ignored vis-a-vis the Ceiling Act and the Authorised officer may legitimately proceed to compute ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y the statute with prohibitions and proscriptions. In particular, s. 22, which we have quoted earlier, contains an interdict. If any transfer, contrary to its tenor, is created it can be voided by the Authorised officer. The whole purpose is to make available land with Government for its equitable dispensation according to the statutory plan. Section 94 is relevant in this context. 6-4-1960 is the date of commencement of the Act. 2-10- 62 is the notified date. Transfers in between these two dates have been executed by the respondents in the various appeals before us. The concrete question is wether s. 22 has the effect of rendering such transfers invalid ipso facto or whether there is need for further proof that such transfers are sham, nominal and bogus . The view taken by the High Court is that: . . . Section 22 seems to cover only those sham, nominal and bogus transfers which are only intended to defeat the provisions of the Act. If the Legislative intention is also to invalidate all bona fide transactions during the relevant period, it would have made certain consequential provisions as to what are the rights of the transferor and the transferee in relation to the pro ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ansfer carves out of the surplus area some land, pro tanto, the provisions of the Act are defeated. Indeed, it is not seriously disputed that such will be the conclusion if we do not read into the provisions either the condition that it does not apply to bona fide transfers, as Shri Ramamurthy would have it, or does not apply to any transfers other than sham, nominal or bogus transfers, as the High Court would have it. A policy oriented interpretation tallies with the literal construction in the present case. The mischief rule in Heydon's case and the grammatical construction which is the Golden Rule converge to the same conclusion in the present case. The policy of the law of land reform with drastic limit on holdings often drives large holders to evade by manouvres. They make r . gifts, execute sales or settlements, enter into other dealings to save their properties from being taken by the State. May be in a few cases, the owner has real necessity. But why sell only on The eve of land legislation? Why execute deeds, though for good purposes, only where the bill fixing ceilings is round the corner? By and large, the strategies of extrication of holdings from the arm of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rs to preserve the surplus lands for distribution, we find no justification for importing into s. 22 more than its words convey. The Section says what it means, nothing more, nothing else. A simple scan of the provision reveals that any transfer, gift, surrender, settlement or other alienation referred to in the Section may be declared void by the Authorised officer if he finds that the transfer or the partition....defeats any of the provisions of this Act. . The trichotomy is obvious. There must be a transfer or other alienation. It must have taken place during the period mentioned in the Section. It must have the effect of defeating any of the provisions, of the Act. If these three elements are present, the Authorised officer must void the transfer. There is no room for importing a fourth principal that the transfer should be 'sham, nominal or bogus'. Nor indeed is there any additional consideration that if the transfer is bona, fide for family necessity or other urgency then it is good, even though it defeats the provisions of the Act. We cannot amend the Section or dilute its imperatives, scared by the consequences or moved by extraneous sympathies. Sub- conscious forc ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the deed be the masters: but so construe them-adapt them as the occasion demands-so as to do what justice and equity require. This is how she turned the tables on Shylock: It is in this denouement that I would follow the example of Portia-I too am a Portia man In the interpretation of s. 22 we too are Portia men. For this reason we reverse the view of the High Court that s. 22 will not apply to nullify any transaction of transfer or partition unless it is further shown that it is sham, nominal or bogus. Nor do we agree with Shri Ramamurthy that even if a Transaction defeats the ceiling provisions, it may still be valid if the transfer is, from an individual point of view, bona fide. The short reply is that from the community's angle, especially the landless community's angle hungering for allotment, the alienation, however necessary for the individual, is not bona fide visa-vis the community. Therefore, we allow the appeal in the light of the interpretation we have adopted, restore the tribunal's holding and rule that if any transfer defeats the provisions of the Act by reducing the extent of surplus land in excess of the ceiling available from any person such ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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