Sardar Gurmej Singh vs Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Appeal (civil) 324 of 1959

Decision Date: 30 September 1959

Coram: S.R. Das (CJ), S.K. Das, A.K. Sarkar, K. Subba Rao, M. Hidayatullah

In this case the Supreme Court recorded that the appeal concerned an application for special leave to appeal from a judgment dated 12 March 1959 issued by the Punjab High Court in Civil Writ No 170 of 1959. The appeal, filed as Appeal (Civil) 324 of 1959, was made by Sardar Gurmej Singh, who was the petitioner, against Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, who was the respondent and at that time the Chief Minister of the State of Punjab. The judgment was pronounced on 30 September 1959 by a bench composed of the Chief Justice S.R. Das together with Justice S.K. Das, Justice A.K. Sarkar, Justice K. Subba Rao and Justice M. Hidayatullah. The judgment was reported in the 1960 volume 1 of the Supreme Court Reporter at page 909.

The central issue raised by the petition was the proper construction of section 123(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The factual backdrop was that in the general election held in February 1957 for the Sarhali constituency, both Sardar Gurmej Singh (the appellant) and Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon (the respondent) were candidates, together with several other aspirants. The respondent obtained the highest number of votes and was duly declared elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly. On 11 April 1957 the appellant instituted Election Petition No 22 of 1957 seeking a declaration that the election of the respondent should be set aside as void under section 100 of the Representation of the People Act. In support of that prayer the appellant alleged, inter alia, that the respondent and his election agent had appointed a number of individuals as the respondent’s counting and polling agents at various polling centres and that those individuals, at the material time, were occupying the post of lambardar. The appellant contended that because lambardars were engaged in the service of the Government, the appointment of such persons as agents amounted to a corrupt practice within the meaning of section 123 of the Act. The respondent denied all material allegations contained in the petition.

During the course of the proceedings the parties framed a total of twelve issues. Of those, issues 3 and 8 were earmarked for trial as preliminary issues. Issue 8, which was the only issue directly relevant to the question of law under consideration, was phrased as follows: “Is a lambardar a person in the service of the Government or is the position covered by any of the clauses of section 123(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951?” The Election Tribunal, after hearing the parties, decided against the respondent on both of the preliminary issues. Specifically, on issue 8 the Tribunal held that a lambardar was a revenue officer and village accountant who served the Government and that such a position fell squarely within the meaning of clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 of the Act. On the basis of those findings the Tribunal ordered that the remaining issues be set down for a full hearing. Dissatisfied with that order, the respondent filed a petition in the Punjab High Court at Chandigarh invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. The petition was subsequently heard by a Division Bench of the Punjab High Court.

In this matter, the Punjab High Court, composed of Justices Falshaw and Mehar Singh, delivered an order dated 12 March 1959. By that order the Court affirmed the Election Tribunal’s decision on issue 3, but it reversed the Tribunal’s decision on issue 8. The learned judges held that “Lambardars are undoubtedly a class of revenue officers appointed by the Government for the purpose of collecting the land revenue and receiving a statutory percentage on the sums realised by them as their remuneration for so doing, but whereas they were included along with village accountants who are called Patwaris in this State and by other names set out in the section in other parts of India, they are clearly excluded by the provisions of clause (f).” Although the precise scope of that finding was later the subject of some controversy, it is evident that the judges intended to declare that, although a lambardar had been disqualified under the then-existing sub-section (8) of section 123 of the Representation of the People Act before the amendment of 1956, the amended provision, specifically clause (f) of sub-section (7), excluded the lambardar from the operation of that disqualification. Acting on that conclusion, the High Court set aside the Tribunal’s order on issue 8 while leaving the Tribunal’s other findings unchanged. The appellant subsequently obtained special leave from this Court and filed the present appeal. Counsel for the appellant, identified as Mr N C Chatterjee, argued that a lambardar qualifies both as a revenue officer and as a village accountant within the meaning of clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123, and therefore the respondent’s use of lambardars as counting and polling agents in various centres of his constituency amounted to a corrupt practice. In contrast, counsel for the respondent, Mr Pathak, maintained that a lambardar does not fall within either the revenue-officer or village-accountant categories contemplated by the said clause. The crux of the dispute therefore turned on the interpretation of the relevant provisions of section 123 of the Act. That provision provides: “Section 123. Corrupt practices – The following shall be deemed to be corrupt practices for the purposes of this Act: (7) The obtaining or procuring or abetting to obtain or procure by a candidate or his agent or, by any other person, any assistance (other than the giving of vote) for the furtherance of the prospects of the candidate’s election, from any person in the service of the Government and belonging to any of the following classes, namely: (f) revenue officers including village accountants, such as patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like but excluding other village officers. Explanation – (1) In this section the expression ‘agent’ includes an election agent, a polling agent and any person who is held to have acted as an agent in connection with the election with the consent of the candidate. (2) For the purposes of clause (7), a person shall be deemed to assist in the furtherance of the prospects of the candidate’s election if he.”

The Court explained that a person who serves as an election agent, a polling agent, or a counting agent for a candidate is deemed, under the provision, to be acting on the candidate’s behalf. Accordingly, the provision makes clear that, for the purposes of the present enquiry, a candidate is prohibited from appointing as his election agent any individual who is a government servant and who falls within the class of officers described in clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 of the Act. In order for a lambardar to be considered a disqualified officer, it is not sufficient merely that the lambardar be a government servant; the lambardar must also be a revenue officer as contemplated by clause (f) of sub-section (7). If the lambardar does not belong to the category of revenue officers defined in clause (f), then the issue of his being a government servant does not become relevant for consideration. Consequently, the Court proceeded to examine whether a lambardar is one of the officers encompassed by clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 of the Act. Clause (f) of sub-section (7) lists three distinct categories of officers: (i) revenue officers; (ii) village accountants; and (iii) other village officers. The Court then turned to identify the officers that fall within each of these categories. Regarding revenue officers, the Court noted that they constitute a well-known class of officials entrusted with the administration of revenue across the various States, although the specific titles and designations may differ from State to State. The revenue hierarchy typically extends from a Revenue Board or a Commissioner at the top down to village officers at the bottom. The Court cited Baden-Powell’s work “Land-Systems of British India,” volume I, page 323, which outlines the machinery of British land administration and enumerates the officers responsible for revenue matters at the State, district, taluk and village levels. In the context of Punjab, the revenue officers identified include the Financial Commissioner, Director of Land-Records and Agriculture, the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner (Collector), subordinate officers, tahsil officers and village officers. The Court observed that this pattern, with minor variations, is reproduced in other States as well. From this, the Court concluded that a revenue officer is any person employed in the business of revenue, a term broad enough to encompass all officers forming the revenue administration hierarchy of the State. The Court indicated that it was unnecessary to decide whether officers employed by a State or the Union in revenue matters other than land, such as customs or income-tax, fall within the meaning of “revenue officers.” The Court then turned to the second group, village accountants, stating that the second group of officers in clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 of the Act comprises the village accountants, such as, patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like. The second group of officers in cl. (f) of sub-s. (7) of s. 123 of the

The statute defines “village accountants” to include officers such as patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and others of a similar description. An examination of the duties performed by those enumerated officers shows that each of them functions as a local counterpart of a patwari. The wording of clause (f) itself supplies the means by which the term “village accountants” is to be understood. The expression “such as” that follows the words “village accountants” and the phrase “the like” that follows the listed categories both indicate that the examples are intended to illustrate, and therefore define, the term. In other words, the enumerated categories of officers and similar persons precisely determine the scope and meaning of the phrase “village accountants.”

Other village officers are, by contrast, those village officials who are not classified as village accountants. It is important to note that, unlike revenue officers—who may have jurisdiction extending beyond a single village—these other village officers are limited to exercising authority only within the confines of a particular village. A basic rule of statutory construction requires that a section be interpreted by considering all its components together, rather than isolating a single part, and that phrases be read according to ordinary grammatical principles. When the provision is read in this manner, its meaning becomes clear. The broader category is “revenue officer,” and the clauses that use the words “including” and “excluding,” linked by the conjunction “but,” indicate that village accountants are to be taken within the group of revenue officers, whereas other village officers are to be left out of that group. If X includes A but excludes B, the natural meaning is that X contains A while omitting B. It is unnecessary to determine whether the inclusive definition expands the meaning of “revenue officers” or merely makes explicit that the listed officers fall within that class; in either interpretation, village accountants qualify as revenue officers.

The argument that the excluded officers were never part of the class from which they were excluded, and that lambardars, for example, were not revenue officers yet had to be excluded as a precaution, cannot be accepted. Accepting that view would mean that lambardars and other village officers, which include lambardars, were removed from the revenue-officer group, thereby relieving them from the disqualification imposed by the provision. It is also suggested that the wording “revenue officers” together with “excluding other village officers” is redundant, because the same effect could be achieved by simply stating “village accountants, such as patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like.” This reasoning overlooks the distinction between “revenue officers” and “village officers.” As previously explained, “revenue officers” is a broader term that embraces all officials engaged in revenue administration, whereas the jurisdiction of village officers is confined to their respective villages. Consequently, village officers do not exhaust the content of revenue officers, and the statutory language serves a necessary purpose in differentiating the two categories.

Even after the village officers are excluded, many higher-level revenue officers would still fall within the ambit of clause (f); consequently, under this reading every term in the clause is given effect and no word is redundant. The Court then examined the two alternative constructions put forward by the appellant’s counsel. The first construction contends that the phrase “village officers” is employed with excessive caution because the earlier Act enumerates a long list of officers, and the legislature feared that the public might understand the word “like” to include all village officers who are not revenue officers. Accepting this contention would imply that the Legislature lacked precision, for the term “revenue officers,” whatever its sense, obviously cannot embrace officers who are not revenue officers; therefore, there is no need to carve out such officers from the revenue-officer group. The device of exclusion is intended only to remove a part from a whole that, but for the exclusion, would remain part of it. This interpretation must be rejected because it creates surplus language. The second alternative construction also fails. It proposes that the generic class is “village accountants” and that the exclusion operates only within that category. This view is defective in two respects. First, “village officers” have a broader meaning than “village accountants,” so the latter cannot be the species carved out of the former; accepting the view would amount to reading “village accountants” as “village officers.” Second, if the words are substituted in this way, both the expressions “village officers” and “other village officers” become redundant, because the same result could be achieved by simply stating “revenue officers including the enumerated officers.” That reading would require rewriting the clause, recognizing unnecessary words, and excluding something from a category that does not originally contain it, rendering the exclusion wholly redundant. The appellant’s counsel relied on the precedent set in Raja Bahadur K.C. Deo Bhanj v. Raghunatha Misra, where the issue was whether a sarpanch of a Grama Panchayat formed under the Orissa Gram Panchayats Act, 1948, constituted a person in the service of the State of Orissa. The Court held that the sarpanch was not a person in the service of the Government within the meaning of section 123(7)(f) of that Act. That determination was sufficient to dispose of the appeal, but the

The Court also examined the alternative submission that, even if a sarpanch could be regarded as a person in the service of the Government, he nevertheless did not fall within the category of officers enumerated in clause (f) of the relevant sub-section. The Court held that the sarpanch was neither a revenue officer nor a village accountant as contemplated by that clause. During the judgment, however, the Court made certain observations concerning the construction of the clause, and the appellant’s counsel relies on those observations. The observations appear at page 596 of the judgment and read as follows: “Clause (f), in the first instance, speaks of a person in the service of the Government who is a revenue officer and then further extends the class to village accountants. The words ‘such as patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like’ are merely descriptive of the words ‘Revenue officers including village accountants’. Under clause (f) it is essential that a person in the service of the Government must be a revenue officer or a village accountant, by whatever name such officer or village accountant may be described. The exclusion of every other village officer from the provisions of clause (f) compels the conclusion that before this clause can apply to a sarpanch of the Grama Panchayat under the Orissa Act it must be proved that he is either a revenue officer or a village accountant.” The appellant contended that these observations indicate that this Court interpreted clause (f) differently from the interpretation advanced by the present Court. The appellant argued that while the present Court held that the expressions “such as …” and “the like” describe only village accountants, the extracted observations appear to describe the composite phrase “revenue officers including village accountants”. Even assuming that view, the appellant submitted that the exclusion clause does not refer exclusively to village accountants and should not be read as excluding revenue officers. The learned judges in the earlier case considered a sarpanch and concluded that he was not a village officer. Consequently, because he was not a village officer, he was not excluded from the category of revenue officers under clause (f), and the clause would apply to him if he were a revenue officer or a village accountant. Thus, when the earlier judges stated that it must be proved that the sarpanch was a revenue officer or a village accountant before the clause could apply, they used the term “revenue officers” in its sense within clause (f), namely revenue officers excluding other village officers. That earlier decision did not hinge on an interpretation of the exclusion clause; rather, it was based on the finding that the sarpanch in that case was first not a person in the service of the Government and second not a revenue officer within the meaning of the Act because he did not perform revenue functions, nor was he a village accountant. For the reasons mentioned, the Court reached its conclusion.

The Court observed that, when the ordinary meaning of the words employed in the statutory provision is adopted, a lambardar, being a village revenue officer, falls outside the operation of clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 of the Act. Having made that determination, the Court proceeded to examine the question of whether a lambardar can be regarded as a village accountant within the sense of the same clause. To answer that question, the Court referred to the historical development of village administration in the country, noting that from the earliest periods there has been a clear separation of status and functions between the village headman and the patwari, although the terminology varies in different regions.

In relation to the State of Punjab, the Court noted that it is a common practice for a village headman to be identified as a lambardar. The Court cited Baden-Powell’s work “Land-Systems of British India”, Volume I, where the author, on page 21, explains that the term “headman” denotes a hereditary officer of some standing who, even when not essential to the social fabric of the village, is usually appointed or recognised by the Government as the convenient single point of contact and representation for the community. On page 22 of the same volume, Baden-Powell describes the patwari as “the person who keeps the village accounts, looks after the maps and records of rights, and registers changes in land proprietorship and tenancies”. The author further notes that the patwari is sometimes called a “village accountant” or “village registrar”, though neither label is fully satisfactory, and that equivalent titles in other parts of India include “Karnam” in the North and Central Provinces, and “Kulkarni” in the West. In Volume II, page 740, Baden-Powell again contrasts the lambardar and the patwari in Punjab, stating that the headman is styled “lambardar” and that many villages have several lambardars, which can dilute the advantage of representing many co-sharers through a single individual. Consequently, the author argues that it is useful to have a single chief headman who can be more easily communicated with and held responsible. Regarding the patwari, the author writes on page 733 that this official is of utmost importance to the revenue system, because the efficiency and competence with which the patwari prepares village records and statistics ultimately determine the reduction of labour and difficulty for the people during settlement proceedings. The author further lists the patwari’s duties on page 735, emphasizing that the preparation and maintenance of the annual land-records constitute the most significant responsibility of the patwari.

Therefore, the Court observed that a clear separation existed between the status and the functions of the two categories of officers, and that the same pattern was applied in Punjab. The Punjab Land Administration Manual, compiled by Sir James McC. Douie and regarded as an authoritative reference, sets out in detail the nature and the respective duties of a village headman and a patwari. Chapter VIII of that manual is devoted to the duties of a village headman. A village headman owed duties both to the Government and to the land-owners and tenants of the estates with which he dealt in his relationship with the State. His obligations to the Government comprised, first, the collection and remittance into the Treasury of land revenue and all other sums recoverable as land revenue; second, the duty to report to the tahsildar the deaths of assignees and pensioners and their absence for a period exceeding one year, as well as any encroachments on or damage to Government property; and third, the duty to assist in carrying out harvest inspections, surveys, the recording of mutations and other revenue business, and, when required, to provide, upon payment, supplies or means of transport for troops and Government officers. His obligations to land-owners and tenants of the estate included acknowledging every payment received from them in their parcha books, and collecting and managing the common village fund (malba) while accounting to the shareholders for all receipts and expenditures. The manual notes that, since 1953, the lambardar has been relieved of the latter duty because there are no common lands at present. In addition, one of the chief responsibilities of the headman was to aid in the prevention and detection of crime.

The duties of a patwari are set out in Chapter VII of the same manual. The patwari’s three principal duties were identified as follows: first, the maintenance of a record of the crops grown at each harvest; second, the upkeep of the record of rights by the punctual registration of mutations; and third, the accurate preparation of statistical returns that embodied the information derived from the harvest inspections, the register of mutations and the record of rights. Chapter XI further described the particular registers that a patwari was required to keep, namely the area statement or milan rakba, the Kharif crop statement or jinswar, the Rabi crop statement or jinswar, the revenue account or jama wasil baki, the statement of transfers of rights of owners and occupancy tenants, the statement of sales and mortgages of ownership of classes of land, the statements of ownership, mortgages and revenue assignments, the statements of cultivating occupancy, the statement of rent paid by tenants-at-will, and the statement of agricultural stock. For more detailed information on the respective duties of a village headman and a patwari, the Court suggested referring to the provisions of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Act XVII of 1887), the Rules made thereunder, particularly rule 20, and Chapter III of the Punjab Land Records Manual. A comparative study of the duties of the two officers, the Court noted, clearly demonstrated the distinction between them.

The Court observed that the village headman functioned not merely as an agent of the State within the village but also as the recognised representative of the village community, whereas the patwari was a comparatively minor officer whose primary responsibility was to keep the accounts and other relevant records related to revenue matters. Against this backdrop, Parliament enacted section 123 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act. In its original form, section 123(8)—which corresponded to what later became section 123(7)—was worded as follows: “Major corrupt practices. The following shall be deemed to be corrupt practices for the purposes of this Act: (8) The obtaining, procuring, abetting or attempting to obtain or procure, by a candidate or his agent, or by any other person with the connivance of a candidate or his agent, of any assistance for the furtherance of the prospects of the candidate’s election from any person serving under the Government of India or the Government of any State, other than the giving of a vote by such person.” The section then contained an explanation. Sub-paragraph (a) clarified that “a person serving under the Government of India shall not include any person who has been declared by the Central Government to be a person to whom the provisions of this clause shall not apply.” Sub-paragraph (b) explained that “a person serving under the Government of any State shall include a patwari, chaukidar, dafedar, zaildar, shanbagh, karnam, talati, talari, patil, village munsif, village headman or any other village officer, by whatever name he is called, employed in that State, whether the office he holds is a whole-time officer or not, but shall not include any person (other than any such village officer as aforesaid) who has been declared by the State Government to be a person to whom the provisions of this clause shall not apply.” Under this provision, obtaining assistance from any person serving under the Government constituted a corrupt practice, and the definition expressly covered all village officers, including patwaris and village headmen, as persons serving under the Government. For reasons known only to Parliament, the provision was amended in 1956. The amendment, reproduced as section 123(7)(f), excluded from the definition of “revenue officers” those village officers who were not village accountants, such as patwaris and similar officials. The Court noted that Parliament, fully aware of the clear distinction between village headmen, who acted as community representatives, and patwaris, who performed accounting duties, deliberately included the former within the definition of revenue officers while excluding the latter. Consequently, it would be unreasonable to interpret the amended clause so as to place the village headman within the category of village accountants. To do so would distort the language of the provision, especially since the term “village accounts,” as defined in the clause, had acquired a specific secondary meaning through convention and statutory usage. The Court further remarked that there was no logical basis for disqualifying a patwari while qualifying a village headman for the same electoral restrictions, given the legislative intent evident from the distinction drawn by Parliament.

In this case the Court observed that the argument that a village headman might have a greater influence on the electorate than a patwari did not affect the statutory interpretation, because the Court’s task was to ascertain Parliament’s expressed intention, not to evaluate the policy behind the legislation. The Court noted that clause (f) of sub-section (7) of section 123 had been modified by Act LVIII of 1958, and reproduced the amended wording: “revenue officers, other than village revenue officers known as lambardars, malgujars, patels, deshmukhs, or by any other name, whose duty is to collect land revenue and who are remunerated by a share of, or commission on, the amount of land revenue collected by them but who do not discharge any police functions.” The Court pointed out that under this amendment lambardars were expressly excluded from the definition of “revenue officers.” While the amendment was not being used as a tool to aid construction, it was relevant to the contention that no underlying policy justified treating the two categories of village officers alike. The fact that Parliament, in its latest amendment, had consciously preserved the distinction suggested that it recognized a material difference between a lambardar and a village accountant. Consequently, the Court held that a village headman could not be captured by the phrase “the like” in the clause. The Court further indicated that it was unnecessary to decide whether a lambardar qualified as a person in the service of the Government under section 123(7). Before concluding, the Court expressed concern that the election petition had been unduly delayed. The election had been held on 24 February 1957, the respondent was declared elected on 25 February 1957, and the petition was filed on 11 April 1957; yet, more than two and a half years later, the petition remained undecided. The Court expressed hope that the remaining issues in the election petition would be resolved promptly. In the final analysis, the appeal was dismissed and costs were awarded against the appellant.