TMI Blog1961 (8) TMI 71X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e judgment and order of the High Court of Orissa dated November 28, 1956, by which 42 petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution filed by the present appellants and some other were dismissed. The High Court certified the cases as fit for appeal to this Court under Article 132(1) of the Constitution. 2. The appellants are holders of pre-settlement minor inams in the State of Orissa. This grants are different both in regard to the time when they were made and the lands involved in them. They were made for performance of services of deities and were classed as Devadayam grants in the revenue papers. The grants in all these cases were not of whole villages but of certain lands and hence their classification as minor inams, and they compris ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... -free lands, prepared and maintained under the law for the time being in force by the Collector of a district, and includes revenue-free lands not entered in any register and all classes of tenures or under tenures, or an inam estate or part of an estate. 5. By the amending Act of 1954, this definition was substituted by another, which read : 2(g) 'Estate' includes a part of an estate and means any land held by or vested in an intermediary and included under one entry in any revenue roll or any of the general registers of revenue paying lands and revenue free lands, prepared and maintained under the law relating to land revenue for the time being in force or under any rule, order, custom or usage having the force of law, and include ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... visions which we may have to refer to in this judgment, we first set down the definition of estate as given in the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, which was applied to Orissa. Section 3(2) (d) of that Act defined estate as : Any inam village, of which the grant has been made, confirmed or recognised by the Government, notwithstanding that subsequent to the grant the village has been partitioned amongst the grantees or the successors in title of the grantee or grantees. 9. The argument in this case is based upon this definition, because in defining an 'estate', whole villages which were inam were contemplated and not minor inams of lands only. We shall refer to this later. 10. The amending Act was also reserved for the consideration o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... provided for compensation, and either fixed the compensation or specified the principles on which the compensation was to be determined and given. (Clause 2). By clause (3), it was provided that no law such as was referred to in clause (2) was to have effect unless such law having been reserved for the consideration of the President had received his assent. Clause (4) then provided : (4) If any Bill pending at the commencement of this constitution in the Legislature of a State has, after it has been passed by such Legislature, been reserved for the consideration of the President and has received his assent, then, notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the law so assented to shall not be called in question in any court on the ground ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he word estate as defined in section 2(g) before its amendment did not apply to pre-settlement minor inams of lands as it applied only to an inam estate , and an inam estate had the meaning which the definition of estate had in the Madras Estates Land Act, viz., only whole inam villages . This, it is urged, follows from the provisions of section 2(p) of the Estates Abolition Act quoted earlier. 14. The first argument is clearly untenable. It assumes that the benefit of Article 31A is only available to those laws which by themselves provide for compulsory acquisition of property for public purposes and not to laws amending such laws, the assent of the President notwithstanding. This means that the whole of the law, original and amending, mus ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ncluding 'any inam', and the amending Act merely followed that definition. The extended definition in the Constitution and a similar extended definition in the Act thus exclude resort to the general definition clause in section 2(q) of the Abolition Act and the definition of estate in the Madras Estates Land Act. The definition of estate introduced by the amending Act is sufficiently wide to cover such minor inams, and section 2(q) only applies, if a word or expression used in the Abolition Act is not defined therein. If the minor inams are already within the definition of the word estate , there is no need to go to section 2(q) or to any local law defining the word. There can be no doubt that if the new definition of estate applies ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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