Mahant Sankarshan Ramanuja Das Goswami vs The State Of Orissa And Another

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 22 August 1961

Coram: M. Hidayatullah, J.L. Kapur, J.C. Shah, Raghubar Dayal

In the matter titled Mahant Sankarshan Ramanuja Das Goswami versus The State of Orissa and another, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 22 August 1961. The case was heard by a bench consisting of Justice M Hidayatullah, Justice J L Kapur, Justice J C Shah and Justice Raghubar Dayal. The petitioner was Mahant Sankarshan Ramanuja Das Goswami together with several others, and the respondents were the State of Orissa and an additional party. The judgment bears the citation 1967 AIR 59 and 1962 SCR (3) 250, and it primarily concerned the constitutionality of the Estates Abolition (Amending) Act, 1954 as it related to the definition of “estate” under the Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951, in the context of Article 31‑A of the Constitution of India.

The appellants were identified as holders of pre‑settlement minor inams, which are land grants comprising both melwaram and kudiwaram rights but not the entirety of villages. Under the original Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951, the term “estate” did not encompass minor inams; however, the Orissa Estates Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1954 expressly expanded the definition to include such minor inams. Both statutes obtained the assent of the President of India, thereby becoming law. The appellants advanced two principal arguments: first, that the 1954 Amendment did not constitute a law authorising compulsory acquisition of property for a public purpose and therefore could not be saved by Article 31‑A; second, that minor inams lay outside the scope of the abolition legislation and could not be resumed by the State.

The Court rejected both submissions and held that the Amendment Act of 1954 was valid and fell within the protection afforded by Article 31‑A. By assenting to the Amendment, the President effectively endorsed the inclusion of new categories of property within the ambit of the 1951 Act, thereby authorising their compulsory acquisition for public purposes. Although the minor inams did not involve whole villages and comprised both warams, they remained inams, and the constitutional definition of “estate” includes any inam; consequently, they were covered by the amended abolition statute. The Court observed that the ejusdem generis rule could not be invoked to limit the definition of “estate” because specific categories such as “jagir, inam or muafi” were expressly listed in Article 31‑A(2)(a). The rule applies only when a general term follows particular enumerated terms and must be interpreted in light of the genus indicated by those specific terms. The judgment also noted that the civil appellate jurisdiction encompassed appeals numbered 474 to 501, 503 to 505, 508 to 512, 514 and 515 of 1959, which originated from the judgments and orders dated 28 November 1956 in O.J.C. No. 213 of 1955 and the order dated 4 December 1956 of the Orissa High Court in various O.J.C. numbers.

In this matter, the Court considered thirty‑eight appeals against the judgment and orders of the Orissa High Court dated 28 November 1956, which had dismissed forty‑two petitions filed under article 226 of the Constitution. The High Court had certified that the cases were appropriate for appeal to this Court under article 132(1) of the Constitution. The appellants were individuals who held pre‑settlement minor inams in the State of Orissa. Their grants differed both in the dates of grant and in the lands to which they related. Each grant had been made for the purpose of performing services to deities and was recorded in the revenue records as a Devadayam grant. The grants did not comprise entire villages; rather they related to specific parcels of land, and therefore they were classified as minor inams. Each such grant carried both melwaram and kudiwaram rights over the land concerned. Counsel for the appellants, appearing in the various civil appeal numbers listed, argued a single substantive question before the Court: whether Notification No 4971‑XV‑9154‑E.A dated 15 July 1955 issued by the Orissa State Government, and the Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951 (Act 1 of 1952) as amended by the Orissa Estate Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1954 (Act XXVII of 1954), were beyond the legislative competence of the State and its Legislature. The appellants contended that the original Act and its amendment, either jointly or severally, exceeded the powers of the State Legislature and that the aforementioned notification was therefore void and had no legal effect.

The Bill that gave rise to the original Act was introduced on 17 January 1950, passed by the Legislative Assembly on 28 September 1951, and then reserved for the President’s consideration; presidential assent was granted on 23 January 1952. Under the original legislation, all estates held by intermediaries were abolished, and a subsequent notification vested those estates in the Government. The amendment enacted in 1954 expanded the definition of “estate” to include minor inams, after which the impugned notification was issued. The appellants asserted that both the original Act and its amendment were ultra vires the State Legislature. In the unamended Act, section 2(g) defined “estate” as follows: “‘Estate’ means any and held by an intermediary and included under one entry in any of the general registers of revenue‑paying lands and revenue‑free lands,” a definition that was later replaced by a broader wording in the 1954 amendment. The Court was asked to determine the validity of the statutory definition and the subsequent notification within the constitutional framework.

In the original legislation, the term “estate” was defined as land that was prepared and maintained under the law then in force by the district collector, and it also encompassed revenue‑free lands that were not entered in any register, together with all classes of tenures, tenures‑under‑tenure, an inam estate, or part of an estate. By the Amending Act of 1954 this definition was replaced with a new one that 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 includes revenue‑free lands not entered in any register or revenue‑roll and all classes of tenures or under‑tenures and any jagir, inam, or muafi or other similar grant.” This new definition therefore broadened the scope of “estate” to cover additional categories of land and rights that were not captured by the earlier language.

The Act, both in its original form and as amended, contained a general provision in section 2(q) stating: “(q) All words and expressions used in this Act but not defined in it shall have, with reference to any part of the State of Orissa, the same meaning as defined in the tenancy laws and rules for the time being in force and, in the absence of written laws and rules, as recognised in the custom then obtaining in that part of the State of Orissa.” In addition, section 3 of the amending Act inserted a clause declaring, “For the purpose of removal of all doubts it is declared that—such lands and such rights in relation thereto and such persons who hold such lands and such rights as were heretofore covered by the definitions of the words ‘estate’ and ‘intermediary’ in the Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951, shall not cease to be so covered merely on the ground that by virtue of the provisions of this Act the said definitions have been amended and widened in scope.” The Court explained that this provision did not diminish the earlier definition; rather, it merely added to it, a result plainly reflected in the expanded language of the amended definition of “estate.” To complete its analysis, the Court then referred to the definition of “estate” in the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, which had been 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.” The argument in the present case relied on this definition, because it considered an “estate” to be a whole village granted as an inam, rather than a minor inam of land alone.

The Court observed that the original definition of “estate” was intended to cover whole villages granted as inams and not merely small parcels of inam land. The Court noted that this point would be revisited later in the judgment. It was further noted that the amending Act, which expanded the definition of “estate,” had also been reserved for the President’s consideration and had subsequently received his assent.

When the Constitution came into force, the bill concerning the Original Act had already been introduced in the legislative Assembly. Before the Legislative Assembly passed the Act, the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 was enacted on 18 June 1951, and Article 31A was inserted into the Constitution with retrospective effect. Article 31A stated, in clause (1), that notwithstanding anything contained in Article 13, no law providing for the State’s acquisition of any estate or any rights therein, or the extinguishment or modification of such rights, could be declared void on the ground that it was inconsistent with, or took away or abridged, any of the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 19 or 31. However, the provision added that where such a law was enacted by a State Legislature, the protection of Article 31A would not apply unless the law had been reserved for the President’s consideration and had received his assent.

Clause (2) of Article 31A specified that, for any local area, the term “estate” would have the same meaning as that term or its local equivalent possessed under the existing land‑tenure law applicable in that area, and it would also include any jagir, inam, muafi or other similar grant. The Court then turned to Article 31 as it stood before its amendment by the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955. At that time Article 31 provided, among other things, that no property could be acquired for a public purpose unless the law provided for compensation, either fixing the amount of compensation or laying down the principles for its determination. Clause (2) of that provision required such a law to have effect only if it had been reserved for the President’s consideration and had received his assent. Clause (3) reinforced this requirement, and Clause (4) declared that if any bill pending at the commencement of the Constitution in a State Legislature was passed, reserved for the President, and assented to, then, notwithstanding any constitutional provision, that law could not be questioned in any court on the ground that it violated the provisions of clause (2).

The Court concluded that the combined effect of these constitutional provisions was to prevent compulsory acquisition of property for public purposes unless the law provided for payment of compensation, while simultaneously making such a law immune from judicial challenge on that ground once it had been reserved for the President’s consideration and received his assent. Consequently, the President’s assent functioned as a condition precedent to the law’s effectiveness. By the amendment of the Constitution, the Court underscored the significance of this procedural requirement.

According to the judgment, the inclusion of Article 31A meant that a law could not be declared void on the basis that it conflicted with, removed, or limited any of the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 19, or 31, provided that the law had been reserved for the President’s consideration and had obtained his assent. Article 31A(2)(a) defined the term “estate” to have the same meaning in any local area as it did in the existing land‑tenure law of that area, and the definition was required to include, among other things, any “inam”. The appellants raised two principal contentions. First, they argued that the protection afforded by Article 31A could apply to the original statute, which directly dealt with compulsory acquisition of property for public purposes, but could not extend to the amending statute because the latter merely amended the earlier law by widening the definition of “estate”. Second, they contended that the pre‑amendment definition of “estate” in section 2(g) did not cover pre‑settlement minor inams of land, as it applied only to an “inam estate”, the meaning of which, under the Madras Estates Land Act, referred solely to whole “inam villages”. They relied on section 2(q) of the Estates Abolition Act to support this view. The Court found the first contention untenable. It noted that the argument presumed that Article 31A protection was limited to statutes that themselves provided for compulsory acquisition, excluding statutes that merely amended such statutes, even when the President’s assent had been obtained. Accepting that view would require that both the original and the amending statutes be re‑passed, again reserved for the President’s consideration, and freshly assented to, a requirement contrary to established legislative practice. The Court presumed that the President’s assent to the amending Act covered its relationship to the statute it modified, especially because the amendment sought to extend the provisions concerning compulsory acquisition to new categories of property. By assenting to the amendment, the President thereby accepted the inclusion of these new categories within the scope of the existing law and, in effect, consented to a law permitting compulsory acquisition for public purposes of the newly described property. Consequently, the President’s assent to the amending Act automatically invoked the protection of Article 31A. The Court held that the amending Act must be read in connection with the original law it sought to expand, and that the President’s assent to that expansion meant the amended provision fell within the ambit of a law for compulsory acquisition of property for public purposes. The argument that this was not such a law was therefore rejected.

In this case the Court observed that the contention that the acquisition involved an inam estate comprising a whole village and therefore fell outside the Abolition Act lacked merit. The Court noted that the minor inams in question were not entire villages but parcels of land, and that the grants comprised both the warms and there were no intermediaries. Nevertheless they remained inams, and the Constitution defined “estate” to include any inam; the amending Act simply adhered to that definition. Because the Constitution provided an expanded definition of estate and the Act mirrored that expansion, there was no need to resort to the general definition clause in section 2(q) of the Abolition Act or to the definition of “estate” in the Madras Estates Land Act. The definition of “estate” introduced by the amending Act was sufficiently broad to encompass such minor inams, and section 2(q) applies only where a term used in the Abolition Act is not defined therein. Since the minor inams already fell within the definition of “estate,” reference to section 2(q) or to any local law defining the term was unnecessary. The Court affirmed that if the new definition of “estate” covered minor inams, those inams were consequently subject to the Abolition Act, a point that had been conceded. The Court further addressed the argument raised by counsel for the appellants, who suggested, albeit weakly, that the ejusdem generis rule should be applied to the definition of “estate” in Article 31A(2)(a) and to the corresponding new definition in the Abolition Act. The Court rejected this argument, stating that it rested on an unfounded assumption. The ejusdem generis rule is invoked when a general term must be limited by reference to the specific terms that precede it. The rule has little relevance where the definition expressly includes certain specific categories. It might apply to the phrase “other similar grant,” which could be interpreted in light of the preceding categories “jagir, inam, or muafi,” but the term “inam” itself is not subject to that rule. Once it is accepted that inams of any kind are included, it is immaterial whether the inams relate to land rather than whole villages. Likewise, the fact that holders of such inams cannot be described as intermediaries, or that the grants contained both melwaram and kudiwaram rights, does not affect the outcome, because the law abolished inams as well as intermediaries. Finally, the Court referred to Section 3 of the Abolition Act, which permits the State Government, by notification, to declare that a specified estate has passed to and become vested in the State free from all encumbrances. If the definition of “estate” is broad enough to include a minor inam and a valid notification is issued, the consequences prescribed by Section 3 must follow. The Court concluded that such a law could not be challenged on the ground that it infringes any fundamental right conferred by the Constitution.

The Court explained that the constitutional guarantees contained in Articles fourteen, nineteen and thirty‑one would not be violated provided that the statute under consideration had obtained the President’s assent. In other words, the Court held that the presence of presidential approval removed any conflict between the enactment and those constitutional provisions. Having addressed that point, the Court turned to the effect of the notification issued under the statute. It was determined that the notification could be regarded as valid on the condition that the legislation which authorized it was itself valid. Thus, the validity of the notification was directly linked to the legitimacy of the underlying law.

On the basis of this reasoning, the Court reached the conclusion that the appeals raised against the notification could not succeed. Accordingly, the Court ordered that the appeals be dismissed. In addition, the Court directed that the parties bear the costs of the proceedings, but that only a single set of costs should be awarded. The final order therefore reflected the dismissal of the appeals together with the cost award, and no further relief was granted.