TMI Blog1976 (11) TMI 210X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... radesh and the Gaon Sabha of Bedpura claiming common but alternative reliefs. The suit was for injunction or ejectment, on title, of the sole defendant who was the quondam zamindar of the 'estate' which is the subject matter of the suit. The trial Court dismissed the suit whereupon the 2nd plaintiff dropped out of the litigation, as it were, and the State alone pursued the matter by way of appeal against the decree. The High Court partially allowed the appeal and the aggrieved defendant is the appellant before us. 2. An expose of the facts may now be given to the extent necessary for explaining the setting of the contention between the parties. The State of Uttar Pradesh extinguished all zamindari estates by the Act and implemented a scheme of settlement of lands with intermediaries, tenants and others by first vesting all estates in the State and empowering it to vest, divest and re-vest from time to time according to flexible needs and ad hoc requirements, the same estate's in Gaon Sabhas or other local authorities. Settlement of trees, buildings and other specified items in the intermediaries was also part of the agrarian reform. A skeletal picture of th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... plea to the limited degree of giving all the structures and a space of 5 yards running round each 'building'. In the view of the Court hats, bazars, and melas could not be held by a private owner under the scheme of the Act and reliance on the conduct of the cattle market as an indicator of 'appurtenant' area was, therefore, impermissible. The suit was decreed pro tanto. 5. The Gaon Sabha, when defeated in the trial Court, discreetly stepped out of the risks of an appeal but the Government, first plaintiff, claiming to be gravely aggrieved, challenged the dismissal of the suit and was faced with the plea that the land having vested in the Gaon Sabha, on the issue of the notification under Section 117(1) of the Act, the State had no surviving interest in the property and, therefore, forfeited the position of a 'person aggrieved', who alone could competently appeal against a decree. This contention, negatived by the High Court, has been reiterated before us with resourceful embellishments and that, logically, is the first question of law falling for our decision and is the piece de resistance, if we may say so, in this appeal. If the 1st plaintiff ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a to which the notification relates, namely- (a) all rights, title and interest of all the intermediaries- (i) in every estate in such area including land (cultivable or barren), grove-land, forests whether within or outside village boundaries, trees (other than trees in village abadi, holding or grove), fisheries, tanks, ponds, water-channels, ferries, pathways, abadi sites, hats, bazars and melas other than hats, bazars and melas held upon land to which Clauses (a) to (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply, and (ii) in all sub-soil in such estates including rights, if any in mines and minerals, whether being worked or not; shall cease and be vested in the State of Uttar Pradesh free from all encumbrances; * * * 8. Reading the two sister sections together, certain clear conclusions emerge. Emphatically, three things happened on the coming into force of the Act. By virtue of Section 4 the right, title and interest of all intermediaries in every estate, including hats, bazars and melas, stood terminated. Secondly, this whole bundle of interests came to be vested in the State. free from all encumbranc ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 17. Vesting of certain land; etc., in Gaon Shabhas and other local authorities.- (1) At any time after the publication of the notification referred to in Section 4, the State Government may, by general or special order to be published in the manner prescribed, declare that as from a date to be specified in this behalf, all or any of the following things, namely- * * * * (v) hats, bazars and melas except hats, bazars, and melas held on land to which the provisions of Clauses (a) to (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply or on sites and areas referred to in Section 9, and * * * * which had vested in the State under this Act shall vest in the Gaon Sabhas or and other local authority established to the whole or part of the village in which the said things are situate, or partly in one such local authority (including a Gaon Sabha) and partly in another: Provided that it shall be lawful for the State Government to make the declaration (sic) subject to such exceptions and conditions as may be specified in the notification. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or in any other law fo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Management Committee. 13. Pausing here for an instant, let us look back on the status of the State which, through its Executive branch, vests a resumed estate in a Gaon Sabha, retaining power, at any time, and without conditions or even compensation (save for actual developmental work done), to divest the land so vested and make it over to another like local authority. In such a situation where the State remains the legal master with absolute powers of disposition over the land vested pro tempore in a particular Gaon Sabha, can it be postulated that it has no legal interest in the preservation of that over which it has continuous power of operation, creation and deprivation? Government, despite vesting estates in Gaon Sabhas on the wholesome political principle of decentralisation and local self-government, has and continues to have a constant hold on these estates, may be like a brooding omnipotence descending, when it chooses, to take away what it had given possession of to a Sabha. This is plainly present legal interest in Government and a sort of precarium tenans in the Sabha, notwithstanding the illusory expression 'vesting' which may mislead one into ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ngineering visualised by the Act are clear and the semantics of the words used in the provisions must bend, if they can, to subserve them. To be literal or be blinkered by some rigid canon of construction may be to miss the life of the law itself. Strength may be derived for this interpretative stand from the observation in a recent judgment of this Court. A word can have many meanings. To find out the exact connotation of a word in a statute, we must look to the context in which it is used. The context would quite often provide the key to meaning of the word and the sense it should carry. Its setting would give colour to it and provide a cue to the intention of the legislature in using it, A word, as said by Holmes, is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. 20. In the instant case the Act contemplates taking over of all zamindari rights as part of land reform. However, instead of centralising management of all estates at State level, to stimulate local self-government, the Act gives an enabling power-not obligat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ies a plenary connotation, while 'shall vest in the Gaon Sabha' imports a qualified disposition confined to the Tight to full possession and enjoyment so long as it lasts. Lexico- graphic support is forthcoming, for this meaning. Black's Law Dictionary gives as the sense of 'to vest' as 'to give an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment, to clothe with possession, to deliver full possession of land or of an estate, to give seisin'. Webster's III International Dictionary gives the meaning as 'to give to a person a legally fixed immediate right of present or future enjoyment'. 22. The High Court has sought some English judicial backing for taking liberties with strict and pedantic construction. A ruling of this Court has been aptly pressed into service. 23. There is thus authority for the position that the expression 'vest' is of fluid or flexible content and can if the context so dictates, bear the limited sense of being in possession and enjoyment. Indeed, to postulate vesting of absolute title in the Gaon Sabha by, virtue of the declaration under Section 117(l) of the Act is to stultify Section ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s organs like harijan or mahila samajams or labour unions, new protective institutions like legal aid societies operate on the socio-legal plane, not to beat 'their golden wings in the void' but to intervene on behalf of the weaker classes. Such burgeoning of collective social action has, in turn, generated gradual processual adaptations. Test suits, class actions and representative litigation are the beginning and the horizon is expending, with persons and organisations not personally injured but vicariously concerned being entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of the court for redressal of actual or imminent wrongs. 26. In this wider perspective, who is a 'person aggrieved'? Dhabolkar 1974 1 SCR 306 gives the updated answer : The test is whether the words 'person aggrieved' include 'a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicially affects his interests'. (p. 315) American jurisprudence has recognised, for instance, the expanding importance of consumer protection in the economic system and permitted consumer organisations to initiate or intervene in actions, alt ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n the accepted, individualistic jurisprudence of old. The legal dogmas of the quiet past are no longer adequate to assail the social injustices of the stormy present. Therefore, the State, in the present case, is entitled to appeal under Section 96 of the CPC. 28. The second, and from a practical point of view equally potent ground of defence, is that 'appurtenant' space envelops the whole area around the buildings and the suit for recovery of possession deserves to be dismissed in toto. Let us examine this submission. 29. Section 9 of the Act obligates the State to settle (indeed, it is deemed to be settled) with the intermediary certain items in the estate. That provision has been set out earlier. The short enquiry is whether the entire land is 'appurtenant' to the buildings. The contention of the defendant flows along these lines. The structures accepted by the High Court as 'buildings' within the scope of Section 9 were part of a cattle fair complex. Even the mandir and the oushadalya fitted into the that total and the integrity of the whole could not be broken up without violating the long years of common enjoyment. It would al ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... stinction, fine but real. 32. Appurtenance', in relation to a dwelling, or to a school, college ...includes all land occupied therewith and used for the purpose thereof (Words and Phrases Legally Defined-Butterworths, 2nd edn). The word 'appurtenances' has a distinct and definite meaning.... Prima facie it imports nothing more than what is strictly appertaining to the subject-matter of the devise or grant, and which would, in truth, pass without being specially mentioned : Ordinarily, what is necessary for the enjoyment and has been used for the purpose of the building, such as easements, alone will be appurtenant. Therefore, what is necessary for the enjoyment of the building is alone covered by the expression 'appurtenance'. If some other purpose was being fulfilled by the building and the lands, it is not possible to contend that those lands are covered by the expression 'appurtenances'. Indeed 'it is settled by the earliest authority, repeated without contradiction to the latest, that land cannot be appurtenant to land. The word 'appurtenances' includes all the incorporeal hereditaments attached to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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