A.V. Bhanojirao and Others vs State of Andhra Pradesh and Another

P. Chandra Reddy, C.J.—These petitions filed by some of the landholders in Visakhapatnam and West Godavari Districts raise an issue regarding the vires of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Andhra Pradesh Amendment Act, 1957 (XVII of 1957) which amended the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (XXVI of 1948). The concerned Settlement Officers gave decisions in their favour u/s 9(3) of Act XXVI of 1948 declaring that the properties in question did not constitute inam estates within the sweep of Section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act. The affected tenants not having preferred appeals to the Estates Abolition Tribunals, the adjudications became final.

Long after the period of limitation prescribed under Act XXVI of 1948, the Government of Andhra Pradesh presented appeals against the decisions of the proper settlement officers, taking advantage of the Act now impeached which enabled the Government to prefer appeals within one year of the commencement of this Act which came; into force on 23rd December 1957. Objections were raised by the landholders to the maintainability of the appeals on the ground that the Act XVII of 1957 was ineffective in that it was repugnant to Chapter III of the Constitution. The objections having been negatived, the petitioners invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution.

In these petitions, Act XVII of 1957 is impugned as being inconsistent with Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution in that it destroys the rights of the petitioners-landholders enshrined in that Article.

As the controversy centres round some of the Sections of the impugned Act, it is useful to extract them here. Section 9(4)(a)(i) of the Estates Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari Act, 1949, as amended runs as follows:

Against a decision of the Settlement Officer under sub-section (3), the Government may, within one year from the date of the decision or if such decision was given before the commencement of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Andhra Pradesh Amendment Act 1957, within one year from-such commencement, and any person aggrieved by such decision may within two months from the date of the decision or such further time-as the Tribunal may in its discretion allow, appeal to the Tribunal.

This clause was substituted for the following:

Any person deeming himself aggrieved by a decision of the Settlement Officer under subsection (3) may, within two months from the date of the decision or such further time as the Tribunal may in its discretion allow, appeal to the Tribunal.

Act XVII of 1957 replaced this clause by the one which is now challenged as being ultra vires.

It is manifest that the right of appeal is specifically created in the Government, by the amended sections while there was no such-specific provision under the old law. We are told that the amended provision was necessitated by the decisions of some of the Tribunals to the effect that the Government did not have any right of appeal, the right being confined only to a private individual aggrieved by the decision of the Settlement Officer. The legislature, therefore, thought that it was advisable to insert this clause conferring specifically the right of appeal on the Government, which, in the nature of things, is very much interested in the adjudication of the Settlement Officer. It should be borne in mind that under Sec. 3 of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, the entire estate (including all communal lands and porambokes etc.) vested in the Government and as such the Government is vitally interested in any decision that might be rendered by the Settlement Officer. It is for this reason that the legislature had introduced this clause giving the right of appeal to Government.

The amendment is contained in two limbs (i) creating a right of appeal with retrospective effect; and (ii) prescribing a period of one year for enforcing this right. It is thus plain that this clause has created a right of appeal in the Government with retrospective effect.

The argument presented by the learned counsel for the petitioners is that this clause has destroyed the protection given to the landholders by Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution. It is urged that this provision has the effect of abridging the right of the petitioners to hold property. It is argued that by reason of the decision of the Settlement Officers that the properties in question were not estates within the purview of Section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act having become final, the petitioners had acquired a vested interest and this was sought to be taken away by this clause.

It is convenient here to extract Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution which is as under:

All citizens shall have the right - to acquire, hold and dispose of property.

Now what is the impact of this article on Sec. 9(4)(a)(i) of the Estates Abolition Act. How does the impugned section affect the rights of the petitioners to acquire, hold and dispose of property? Admittedly, there is nothing in the impugned Act which in any way abridges the rights guaranteed either to acquire or to dispose of property. We are left with the question whether it touches the right to hold property. It should be remembered that the expression ''to hold'' means only ''to enjoy'' or ''to possess''. In other words, the protection afforded to a citizen of India, is to enable him to possess and enjoy the property belonging to him. Does the clause in question materially interfere with the right of the petitioner either to possess or enjoy the property?

As we have, already observed, this clause has merely vested a right of appeal in Government with retrospective effect, the consequence of which is the finality that attached to the decision of the Settlement Officer is nullified. As a result of this clause, the question whether a particular village was an inam within any of the clauses of Section 3 of the Madras Estates Land Act was left open. It merely exposes the landholders to the risk of an adverse decision being rendered by the Tribunal at the instance of the Government. There is no inviolable or absolute right to allow the determination in favour of a Party unquestioned in appeal or revision. There is no fundamental right in the Chapter guaranteed to a citizen that any adjudication in his favour should have an attribute of finality. It was, therefore, competent for the legislature to give a right of appeal to any party - be it Government or a private individual.

The powers of the legislature are plenary within the constitutional limitations. Entry 21 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Government of India Act 1935 has clothed the Provincial legislature with power to make laws concerning land, that is to say, ''''rights in or over land, land-tenures including the relation of landlord and tenant and the collection of rents; transfer, alienation and devolution of agricultural land; land improvement and agricultural loans; colonization." The main Act, i.e., the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 provides for the abolition of a certain kind of tenures prevailing in the then State of Madras. It provided a machinery for working out the rights and obligations of the landholders and tenants. Therefore, the legislature has not overstepped the making this legislation. So the validity of this legislation cannot be attacked, unless it offends against any provision contained in Chapter III of the Constitution. We have already stated that this does not in any way cut down the right of the petitioners to possess and to enjoy the properties belonging to them. The only consequence of this legislation is that it reopens the question whether a particular village is an estate or not.

The next point to be considered is whether it was open to the legislature to create this right with retrospective operation. In our judgment, the legislature has ample jurisdiction to make laws either prospectively or retrospectively. There is no restriction on the legislative competence in this behalf. There is ample authority for this position.

In the AIR 1941 16 (Federal Court) the Federal Court ruled that a law which modified the pre-existing law relating to payment off rents by tenants to landholders and gave it retrospective operation was valid notwithstanding Section 292 of the Government of India Act, 1935 which enacted that the pre-existing law was to continue to be in force until if was altered. The same principle is contained in M.P.V. Sundararamier and Co. Vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh and Another, . In this case, the Supreme Court decided inter alia that the Sales Tax Laws Validation Act, 1956 (VII of 1956) which rendered the decision of the Supreme Court in The Bengal Immunity Company Limited Vs. The State of Bihar and Others, ineffective, was constitutional and could not be successfully impeached. It was-held in the The Bengal Immunity Company Limited Vs. The State of Bihar and Others, that the Explanation sales were not divested of their character as inter-State sales, as the Explanation to Art. 286(1)(a) of the Constitution did not govern Article 286(2) and that in the absence of Parliamentary legislation as envisaged by Article 286(2), taxation of sales falling within the range would be unconstitutional.

The effect of this decision was that taxes on sales that occurred within a particular period were illegally levied and the assessees were entitled to get back taxes illegally collected from them. It is to nullify this decision that the Sales Tax Laws Validation Act, 1956 (VII of 1956), was enacted by the Parliament. This legislation was given retrospective operation in that it validated the levy of taxes on sales that took place before the law was passed. Notwithstanding this it was laid down by the Supreme Court in M.P.V. Sundararamier and Co. Vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh and Another, ) that the Validation Act was free from challenge, since the power vested in a sovereign State carried with it the authority to enact laws either prospectively or retrospectively, unless there was a limitation contained in the Constitution itself on this power. It, therefore, cannot be maintained that any law which has retrospective operation should be struck down as unconstitutional. The legislative measure now attacked does not transgress any constitutional provision. On the other hand, as we have already stated, it is within the right of the legislature derived under the Entry 21 of List II of the Seventh. Schedule to the Government of India Act 1935. We are not persuaded that Act XVII of 1957 is in any way repugnant to Article 19 of the Constitution.

In this view of ours, it is unnecessary for us to consider whether, if this enactment infringes Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution, it is saved by Article 31-A. It is only a legislative measure that takes away or abridges the rights enshrined either in Article 19 or Article 14 of the Constitution that is immune from challenge under Article 31-A. We are therefore, relieved of the necessity to consider whether Act XVII of 1957 imposes restrictions on the rights guaranteed under Article 19, and, if so, whether they amount to reasonable restrictions. The decisions relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioners deal only with reasonableness of the restrictions imposed by particular pieces of legislation. They do not throw any light on the controversy whether the Act, if at all, offends against Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution.

For these reasons, we hold that the impugned Act must be held to have been validly passed and cannot be invalidated as being repugnant to Art. 19(1)(f).

An additional argument is advanced in W. P. No. 1089 of 1959, namely, that it was not competent for the Government to maintain an appeal in view of the fact that an appeal preferred by the tenants was rejected earlier by the Estates Abolition Tribunal and that that decision having become final, it could not be re-agitated at the instance of the Government. It may be mentioned here that the tenants brought an appeal against the order of the Settlement Officer declaring Dumapagadapa as not an estate as defined by Section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act and the appeal was considered on merits and dismissed It is against this background that Sri Mangachari contends that notwithstanding the amended Section 9(a)(ii)it was not open to the Government to present an appeal against the determination r the Settlement Officer u/s 9(3) of the Estates Abolition Act. The learned counsel pressed upon us the argument that the intendment of this clause is that the Government should be empowered to contest the correctness or the propriety of a decision of the Settlement Officer only in cases where this was not considered by the Appellate Tribunal in an appeal preferred by any other aggrieved party. So, when once the matter was taken in appeal and was decided it could not be questioned once again in an appeal presented the Government.

We are unable to give effect to this contention. Acceptance of this argument would involve the addition of the words "not appealed against" in the clause. We do not think that any canon of construction of statutes permits such addition of words. Unambiguously, the clause in question confers a right of anneal on the Government unfettered by considerations of there having been appeals preferred by other aggrieved parties. We are unconcerned here with the legislative policy, when the language is clear and unambiguous that the Government could prefer an appeal against the decision of the Settlement Officer irrespective of whether that decision was taken in appeal by other aggrieved persons, we have to give effect to it. There is nothing in the content of the clause in question which restricts the right of the Government to prefer an appeal against decisions which are not appealed against. We will not, therefore, be justified in reading a restriction into that clause, as suggested by Sri Mangachari. We are not convinced that this clause is confined to cases where no appeals have been preferred by tenants against the orders of the Settlement Officers u/s 9(3) of the Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948. Consequently, we reject tins contention also.

For these reasons, we dismiss the writ petitions with costs. Advocate''s fee is fixed at Rs. 100/- in each petition.