N. B. Jeejeebhoy vs Assistant Collector, Thana Prant

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeals Nos. 775 and 776 of 1962

Decision Date: 5 October 1964

Coram: K.N. Wanchoo, M. Hidayatullah, Raghubar Dayal, S.M. Sikri, Subba Rao

In the matter titled N. B. Jeejeebhoy versus Assistant Collector, Thana Prant, the judgment was delivered on 5 October 1964 by the Supreme Court of India. The petition was filed by N. B. Jeejeebhoy and the respondent was the Assistant Collector of Thana Prant, Thana. The case was heard by a five‑judge bench comprising Justices K. N. Wanchoo, M. Hidayatullah, Raghubar Dayal, S. M. Sikri and Subbarao K. The principal citations for the decision are 1965 AIR 1096 and 1965 SCR (1) 636. Subsequent citator references include F 1967 SC 637 (8), R 1967 SC 1110 (13), R 1968 SC 377 (13, 16), R 1968 SC 1138 (9), R 1968 SC 1425 (11), R 1969 SC 634 (1, 18, 41, 49), RF 1970 SC 564 (96), RF 1973 SC 1461 (483, 624, 757, 1075, 1077, 1342, 15 D), and 1984 SC 1178 (15, 16). The judgment discusses the Government of India Act, 1935, specifically section 299 dealing with “compensation”, and examines the constitutionality of the Land Acquisition (Bombay Amendment) Act, 1948, which the Court found to be violative of section 299(2) of the 1935 Act.

The factual backdrop reveals that the appellant’s lands were acquired for a housing scheme. Notifications under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 were issued in May 1948, followed by further notifications under section 6 in July and August 1949; possession was taken under section 17 in December 1949. During the determination of compensation, both the Land Acquisition Officer and the District Court applied the 1948 Bombay Amendment, fixing compensation on the basis of the land’s value as of 1 January 1948 rather than on the value at the date of the section 4 notification. On appeal, the High Court held that although the Bombay Amendment was struck down under article 14, it was saved by article 31‑A, and that section 299 of the 1935 Act did not oblige compensation to be equivalent in value to what the owner had lost. The Supreme Court reversed this view, holding that ascertaining compensation on the 1 January 1948 value, absent any special circumstances necessitating an earlier date, was arbitrary and therefore contrary to section 299(2). Consequently, the Bombay Amendment was declared void for failing to provide “just equivalent” compensation. The Court further observed that article 31(2) and section 299(2) are pari materia; there is no basis for interpreting them differently in the context of compensation assessment.

The Court observed that giving a more restricted interpretation to section 299(2) was untenable, citing the authorities at pages 641 E‑F, 643 B‑C and 644 A‑B. It noted that the decision in State of West Bengal v. Mrs Bela Banerjee, reported in [1954] S.C.R. 558, was correctly applied. The Court further explained that the ruling in Mrs Bela Banerjee’s case was not based on the fact that the statute involved was permanent. On principle, when determining compensation, there was no jurisdictional basis for treating a permanent statute differently from a temporary one, as reflected in the passages at 644 C‑D. Consequently, the Bombay Amendment Act, being void from its inception, could not be regarded as an “existing law” within the meaning of Article 31(5)(a) or Article 31‑A at the moment the Constitution came into force; hence it could not be saved by either provision, a point supported by the citations at 646 A, C‑D and G. The Court also referred to several decisions for guidance, namely Khandalwal v. State of U.P. (A.I.R. 1955 All. 12), The Assistant Collector, Thana Prant v. Jumnadas Gokuldas Patel (I.L.R. 1959 Bom. 98), State of West Bengal v. Bon Behari Mondol (A.I.R. 1961 Cal. 112), Dhiruba Devisingh Gohil v. State of Bombay ([1955] 1 S.C.R. 691) and State of U.P. v. H.H. Maharaja Brijendra Singh (I.L.R. 1961 1 All. 236), which were distinguished. The Court clarified that Article 31‑B is not governed by Article 31‑A nor is it merely illustrative of cases that might fall under Article 31‑A; rather, Article 31‑B serves as a constitutional mechanism to place the statutes it mentions beyond challenge on the ground that they violate Part III of the Constitution, as explained in the passages at 648 E‑H.

The judgment proceeded to set out the civil appellate jurisdiction for Appeals Nos. 775 and 776 of 1962, which challenged the decree dated 26 March 1958 issued by the Bombay High Court in First Appeals Nos. 318 and 611 of 1954. Counsel for the appellant in both appeals were identified, as were the representatives for the respondent and the interveners. Subba Rao J delivered the judgment. These appeals were directed against the High Court’s order that modified the decree of the Civil Judge, Senior Division, Thana, arising from a reference concerning land acquisition. On 28 May 1948, the Government of Bombay issued a notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, indicating that certain lands owned by the appellant, together with lands owned by others, were likely to be required for a Government Housing Scheme, a purpose deemed public. Subsequent notifications under section 6 of the same Act were issued on 14 July 1949, 1 August 1949 and 11 August 1949. Possession of the notified lands was taken on 31 December 1949 pursuant to section 17 of the Act. The Land Acquisition Officer then classified the acquired lands into six distinct groups based upon criteria that were to be applied in the assessment of compensation.

In the proceedings before the Land Acquisition Officer, the appellant’s lands were placed in several groups according to the criteria adopted by the officer. Portions of the appellant’s property were assigned to groups 4 and 5, while his khajan lands were placed in group 6. The appellant assigned a value of Rs 500 per acre to the khajan lands, which he expressed as one anna and seven and a half pies per square yard. He valued the lands in group 4 at Rs 1‑6‑0 per square yard and the lands in group 5 at Rs 1‑4‑0 per square yard. On the basis of these valuations, the appellant claimed a total compensation of Rs 44,02,858‑8‑0 for the land and an additional Rs 10,696‑14‑0 for loss of assessment. The Land Acquisition Officer, however, assessed the compensation payable to the appellant at only Rs 1,31,096‑4‑0. Dissatisfied with that award, the appellant filed an application under section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act seeking a reference to the District Court for a review of the officer’s determination. That reference was recorded as Reference No. 55 of 1953. The learned Civil Judge, Senior Division, at Thana, considered this reference together with other references presented by different claimants and rendered his judgment on 30 November 1953. In his judgment, the Civil Judge raised the compensation for the khajan lands from one anna and seven‑and‑a‑half pies per square yard to eight pies per square yard. He also increased the valuation of the lands in groups 4 and 5 by two pies per square yard. Consequently, the total compensation awarded by the Civil Judge amounted to Rs 2,97,676‑15‑0, a considerable increase over the officer’s award of Rs 1,31,096‑4‑0. It is noteworthy that the Civil Judge based his valuation on the date 1 January 1948, even though the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act had been issued later, on 28 May 1948. Under the provisions of the Land Acquisition (Bombay Amendment) Act, 1948 (Bombay Act IV of 1948), hereinafter referred to as the Amending Act, the earlier date of 1 January 1948 was the decisive date for assessing compensation. Moreover, the Civil Judge did not add the statutory solatium of fifteen per cent of the market value, because the Amending Act, unlike the original Land Acquisition Act of 1894, did not provide for any solatium in cases of compulsory acquisition. Both the appellant and the respondent challenged the Civil Judge’s award by filing appeals in the High Court. The appellant’s appeal was recorded as First Appeal No. 611 of 1954, and the respondent’s appeal as First Appeal No. 318 of 1954. The High Court heard these appeals together with appeals filed by other claimants and delivered a common judgment on 26 March 1958. In that judgment the High Court observed that, although the Act was confronted with the equality guarantee of Article 14 of the Constitution, it was saved by Article 31‑A. The Court further held that, pursuant to section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, which governed the statute, compensation for compulsory acquisition need not be equivalent in value to the land that the owner had been deprived of. Accordingly, the High Court upheld the validity of the Amending Act and allowed the respondent’s appeal while dismissing the appellant’s appeal.

The Court restored the award made by the Land Acquisition Officer concerning the khajan lands and dismissed the appeal filed by the appellant. Consequently, the matter before the Court consisted of the two appeals. The Court heard the arguments presented by counsel for the appellant, for the interveners, for the respondents, and for the Advocates‑General of several States to whom notices had been issued. Counsel for the appellant put forward three principal submissions. First, the appellant argued that the Amending Act, being a pre‑Constitution law, was governed by section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and because it failed to provide compensation for property acquired in the manner that this Court had earlier interpreted, the Act was void. Second, the appellant contended that the Act infringed Article 14 of the Constitution. Third, the appellant submitted that the Act was not saved by Article 31‑A, since, although the land acquired fell within the definition of “estate” in that provision, the acquisition was unrelated to agrarian reform or to the regulation of village economies as required by the Court’s precedents.

The Attorney‑General, appearing for the respondents, maintained that the Amending Act was covered by Article 31‑A of the Constitution and therefore its validity could not be challenged on the ground that it contravened either Article 14 or Article 31. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this contention was erroneous, the Attorney‑General further argued that the Act was saved by Article 31(5)(a) of the Constitution, and consequently the adequacy of compensation could not be examined by the courts. He also sought to counter the challenge under Article 14 by invoking the doctrine of classification. The Court then identified the primary issue as whether the Amending Act was void for failing to comply with the requirements of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. To evaluate the parties’ contentions, the Court first set out the substantive provisions of the Amending Act. The impugned legislation was enacted specifically for the acquisition of land to be used in housing schemes. It is a concise statute comprising three sections and applies throughout the State of Bombay. At the time of its passage, the Act was intended to have a life of five years; it was later extended to ten years, and subsequently, by Bombay Act XXIV of 1958, its duration was further extended to twenty years. The Act defines “housing scheme” as any scheme that the Government may from time to time undertake for the purpose of increasing accommodation for housing persons, including any scheme sanctioned in advance by the State Government and carried out by a local authority or a company. Section three of the Act introduces amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, notably altering the expression “public purpose” in section three(f) of that earlier legislation.

In the statute under consideration, the definition of “housing scheme” as provided in the Amending Act was incorporated into the Acquisition Act. Section 3(1)(c) of that Act amended the first clause of sub‑section (1) of section 23 of the Land Acquisition Act by inserting the words “or at the relevant date, whichever is less” after the existing words, brackets and figures “section 4, sub‑section (1)”. The term “relevant date” was defined to mean the first day of January 1948, and sub‑section (2) of section 23 was omitted altogether. Consequently, when land was acquired for a housing scheme under the Amending Act, the owner of that land was entitled to receive compensation calculated on the basis of the market value of the land either on the date on which the acquisition notification was issued or on 1 January 1948, whichever resulted in a lower amount. Moreover, the owner was not eligible to receive the additional fifteen per cent solatium that is ordinarily payable as a consideration for the compulsory nature of the acquisition. In effect, the Amending Act provided for compensation that could be lower than the compensation that would have been payable if the same land had been acquired under the ordinary provisions of the Land Acquisition Act.

The Amending Act was enacted before the adoption of the Constitution and therefore fell within the legislative framework of the Government of India Act, 1935. Specifically, subsection (2) of section 299 of that Act stipulated that neither the Dominion Legislature nor any Provincial Legislature could enact a law authorising compulsory acquisition of land, or of any commercial or industrial undertaking, unless the legislation expressly provided for payment of compensation and either fixed the amount of that compensation or set out the principles and manner by which the compensation was to be determined. Those conditions operated as mandatory restraints on the legislative authority; the power to enact such a law could not be exercised unless the stipulated conditions were satisfied. If a law failed to incorporate a provision for compensation as required, the law was deemed to be beyond the competence of the legislature and consequently void, as if it had never been enacted. The issue before the Court was whether the Amending Act, by limiting compensation to the lower of the two valuation dates and by omitting the fifteen per cent solatium, nonetheless satisfied the requirement of “compensation” as understood in subsection (2) of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. The Court noted that it had previously interpreted the scope of that expression in Article 31(2) of the Constitution before the Constitution was amended by the Fourth Amendment Act of 1955, and the present enquiry required a similar construction of the compensation requirement under the pre‑Constitutional provision.

In examining the meaning of the expression “compensation” in Article 31(2) of the Constitution as it stood before the Fourth Amendment of 1955, the Court noted that clause (2) of Article 31 expressly prohibited the taking or acquisition of any property for a public purpose unless the law provided for compensation and either fixed the amount of that compensation or specified the principles and manner by which the compensation would be determined and paid. The Court observed that, similar to section 299 of the Government of India Act 1935, the fixation of the amount or the specification of the determining principles constituted a necessary condition for a lawful acquisition. The Court further remarked that the relevant portions of these two provisions are materially identical. The scope of these conditions was previously considered in the case of State of West Bengal v. Mrs. Bela Banerjee, reported in 1954 S.C.R. 558 at pages 563‑564. In that case the West Bengal Land Development and Planning Act 1948, passed primarily to settle immigrants arriving from East Bengal because of communal disturbances, authorised the acquisition and development of land for public purposes. The Act stipulated that compensation could not exceed the market value of the land as of 31 December 1946, irrespective of when a notification under sections 4 or 6 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued. After reviewing the relevant constitutional articles, the Court stated that while the legislature has the discretion to lay down principles governing the amount payable to the owner, those principles must ensure that the payment is a just equivalent of what the owner has lost. Within the requirement of full indemnification, the Constitution permits legislative freedom in choosing those principles, but the Court must adjudicate whether the principles consider all elements that constitute the true value of the property and exclude irrelevant matters. Applying these principles, the Court held that because the impugned Act is a permanent statute and land may be acquired many years after its commencement, fixing the market value as of 31 December 1946 as the ceiling for compensation without reference to the land’s value at the time of acquisition is arbitrary and does not satisfy the requirement of Article 31(2).

In the Court’s view, fixing a ceiling for compensation without referring to the market value of the land at the moment it is acquired is arbitrary and does not satisfy either the literal or the purposive requirement of article 31(2). The Court explained that establishing an earlier date for valuation does not always breach the constitutional mandate. For example, if a proposed acquisition scheme becomes public before it is formally launched and speculative buying drives prices sharply upward, using a prior date may be justified to avoid inflated compensation. However, when an earlier date is selected that bears no connection to the actual value of the land at the time of acquisition, the Court held that, even many years later, such a date must be regarded as arbitrary.

The decision therefore set out four guiding principles. First, the term “compensation” in article 31(2) of the Constitution denotes a “just equivalent” of what the owner has been deprived of. Second, any principles laid down by the Legislature may be used only for determining that compensation as defined. Third, it is a justiciable question whether the legislative principles have considered all the relevant factors necessary to determine the true value of the property taken. Fourth, fixing an earlier valuation date without reference to any relevant circumstances that would justify an earlier date is arbitrary.

Applying these principles, the Court observed that they directly govern the situation created by section 299 of the Government of India Act 1935. In the context of paying compensation and prescribing the method of calculating that amount, the Court found no material distinction between the two provisions that would require a different meaning for the word “compensation” in section 299 from the meaning already assigned to it in article 31(2). The High Court had declined to rely on this decision when interpreting section 299, stating that the context of article 31 in the Constitution differs from the context of section 299 in the 1935 Act. The High Court argued that, although both provisions aim at the same objective, section 299 imposes a restriction on the sovereign right of the Legislature to enact laws concerning compulsory acquisition and therefore must be strictly construed, whereas article 31, having undergone several amendments over the past eight years, constitutes a broad declaration of a property right and its incident rights for all persons.

The Court did not find this distinction persuasive for interpreting the term “compensation.” It concluded that the same meaning—namely, a just equivalent of the loss suffered—must apply to “compensation” in both article 31(2) of the Constitution and section 299 of the Government of India Act 1935, and that the High Court’s view of a more limited interpretation was untenable.

In this case, the Court observed that the words used in the final part of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935 had been taken verbatim and placed in article 31(2) of the Constitution. Consequently, it was reasonable to infer that when the Constitution was originally drafted, the framers did not intend to give a different meaning to those words. The Court noted that if the Constitution‑makers had intended a different sense, they would have employed distinct terms such as “price’’ or “consideration’’ to signal a departure from the framework of section 299, 1935. Accordingly, the Court could not accept the High Court’s view that the expression “compensation’’ in section 299 should be given a narrower meaning than the meaning already assigned to the same expression in article 31(2). Both provisions, the Court held, must be understood to carry the same sense, namely that “compensation’’ in section 299 denotes a “just equivalent’’ of what the owner has been deprived of.

The Attorney‑General argued that the earlier decision was relevant only where a permanent statute was involved, and that because the Amending Act was originally enacted for a period of five years, the decision should not apply. The Court acknowledged that the earlier case involved a permanent enactment, but emphasized that the factual circumstance of permanence was not the foundation of the earlier ruling. On principle, the Court stated, the determination of compensation cannot be justified by a distinction between a permanent Act and a temporary one. To illustrate, the Court imagined a temporary law passed in 1948 for fifteen years that required compensation to be measured by the market value of the land as of 1930; the temporary nature of the law would not render the compensation arbitrary. While acknowledging that an earlier valuation date may be appropriate in certain special circumstances, the Court observed that none of those circumstances existed in the present matter. Moreover, although the Amending Act was initially limited to five years, it had been extended repeatedly, most recently for twenty years, and could be further extended, effectively rendering it a permanent statute. The Court therefore concluded that the Amending Act, in fixing compensation, clearly contravened the provisions of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and was consequently void for being inconsistent with the express requirements of that section.

In this case, the Court observed that the amending legislation stipulated that compensation for land acquired under the original Act would be measured at the value of the land on 1 January 1948. The Court noted that this provision of the Amending Act made the reference to the 1948 valuation irrelevant for the purpose of fixing compensation. It was not a fair equivalent of the loss suffered by the owner because the market value of the land on that earlier date could be considerably lower than the value on the date of the acquisition notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. Accordingly, the Court held that the Amending Act was void because it was enacted in breach of the explicit requirements of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. The Court described the Act as a still‑born law. The Court then examined the attempt to preserve the Amending Act by invoking article 31(5)(a) of the Constitution. It quoted the material portion of article 31(5)(a), which states that nothing in clause (2) shall affect the provisions of any existing law except a law to which clause (6) applies. The Court also reproduced clause (6) of article 31, which provides that any State law enacted not more than eighteen months before the commencement of the Constitution may, within three months of that commencement, be sent to the President for certification; if the President certifies it by public notice, the law cannot be challenged in any court on the ground that it violates clause (2) of article 31 or the provisions of sub‑section (2) of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. By reading clauses (5) and (6) together, the Court concluded that clause (2) of article 31 can affect any existing law unless the law in question was a State law enacted within the specified eighteen‑month period and was thereafter certified by the President in the manner prescribed. The Court found that the Amending Act did not satisfy this exception. Consequently, the remaining issue was whether the Amending Act qualified as an “existing law” at the moment the Constitution came into force. The Attorney‑General argued that the term “existing law” should be interpreted broadly to include any law that had been enacted before the Constitution, even if it was later found to be inconsistent with clause (2) of article 31. The Court observed that before article 31(5) can be applied, there must first be an existing law. Under article 366(10), an “existing law” is defined as any law, ordinance, order, bye‑law, rule or regulation that was passed or made before the commencement of the Constitution by a Legislature or authority competent to make such law. Therefore, for a statute to enjoy the status of an existing law, it must have been validly enacted by a competent legislature. Having held that the Amending Act was a still‑born law and void ab initio, the Court concluded that it could not be regarded as an existing law within the meaning of article 31(5).

In its reasoning, the Court observed that the amending legislation was void at the moment of its inception and therefore could not be characterised as an “existing law” within the meaning of article 31(5) of the Constitution. The Court further noted that a comparison of the provisions of clauses (5) and (6) of article 31 revealed a material distinction: clause (6) expressly preserved the non‑compliance of the provisions of section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, provided that the conditions prescribed in that clause were fulfilled, whereas clause (5) contained no such express safeguard. Consequently, the Court held that clause (5) could not grant a revival of a dead law. The Court rejected the contention that the amendment could be saved by article 31(5) and also declined to hold that article 31‑A of the Constitution provided any protection to the amendment. The argument advanced by the learned Attorney‑General was that section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, declared a fundamental right of citizens, that this right had been incorporated into article 31(2) of the Constitution, and that, if article 31‑A were to rescue a challenge to the amendment on the ground of infringement of article 31(2), it would likewise rescue a challenge based on the alleged infringement of section 299(2) of the 1935 Act. The Court described this line of reasoning as “far‑fetched.” It explained that article 31‑A provides that no law dealing with the acquisition by the State of any estate or any rights therein, or the extinguishment or modification of such rights, shall be deemed void on the ground that it is inconsistent with, or abridges, any of the rights conferred by articles 14, 19 or 31. Accordingly, if a statute falls within the ambit of article 31‑A(1)(a), it cannot be invalidated merely because it fails to satisfy the compensation requirement of article 31(2). However, the Court emphasized that article 31‑A has no application to a statute that had no legal existence at the time the Constitution commenced; the provision does not purport to revive statutes that were void when made. The Court therefore concluded that any analogy drawn between the fundamental right under article 31(2) and the conditions set out in section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, is irrelevant when dealing with a law that was void before the Constitution came into force, and that article 31‑A therefore does not enter into the analysis at all.

The Court also referred to the earlier decisions of the Allahabad High Court in H. P. Khandewal v. State of U.P. (1), the Bombay High Court in The Assistant Collector, Thana Prant v. Jamnadas Gokuldas Patel (2), and the Calcutta High Court in The State of West Bengal v. Bon Behari Mondal (3), all of which had repelled the same argument. In addition, the learned Attorney‑General relied upon two Supreme Court rulings, namely Dhirubha Devisingh Gohil v. The State of Bombay (1) and The State of U.P. v. H. H. Maharaja Brijendra Singh. The Court reiterated that these authorities did not alter the principle that a law which did not exist at the commencement of the Constitution cannot be revived or saved by the protective clauses of articles 31(5) or 31‑A. Accordingly, the amendment in question remained invalid.

In the first decision the Court examined the challenge to the Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition Act, 1949, also referred to as Bombay Act LXII of 1949. The challenge was founded on the claim that the Act removed or curtailed fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Act had been passed in 1949, obtained the Governor‑General’s assent on 18 January 1950 and was published in the Gazette on 24 January 1950. The petitioners contended that the Act failed to satisfy the conditions of clause (6) of Article 31 of the Constitution and was therefore void because it infringed section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. The Court observed, however, that the Act was listed as item 4 in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. Applying the language of Article 31‑B, the Court held that the validity of a law placed in the Ninth Schedule could not be questioned on the ground of contravention of section 299 of the 1935 Act. In that context the Court stated, “This is clearly a case where the concerned right which was secured under section 299 of the Government of India Act in the form of a fetter on the competency of the Legislature and which in substance was a fundamental right, was lifted into the formal category of a fundamental right along with other fundamental rights recognised in the present Constitution. There is therefore nothing inappropriate in referring to this right which was pre‑existing, along with the other fundamental rights for the first time secured by this Constitution, when grouping them together, as fundamental rights conferred by the Constitution.” The Court further explained that the phraseology of Article 31‑B indicates that protection is not limited to a breach of certain provisions but extends to any unconstitutional abridgement of rights. It would be illogical to read Article 31‑B as offering protection only where a right is taken away by an act violating the new Constitution, and not when it is taken away by an act violating the now‑repealed section 299 of the Government of India Act. The Court therefore concluded that the Constitution intended to safeguard every Act listed in the Ninth Schedule from any challenge on the ground of violation of any fundamental right secured under Part III, regardless of whether the right was pre‑existing or newly created. This intention was affirmed by the emphatic wording of Article 31‑B, which declares that none of the provisions of the specified Acts shall be deemed void or ever to have become void on the ground of the alleged violation of the rights indicated and “notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order of any court or tribunal” (1) [1955] 1 S.C.R. 691, 696‑697. (2) I.L.R. (1961) 1 All. 236. L2Sup./65 --16. The Court subsequently followed this judgment in the later decision.

In the second decision referred to above, the Court examined the explicit provisions of Art. 3 1 -B of the Constitution. Although the observations made in those decisions were broad, the Court held that they did not affect the issue of whether the Act in question was void prior to the Constitution coming into force. The Court explained that the question of a particular Act being void before the Constitution's commencement would not arise if the Constitution itself had placed that Act in the Ninth Schedule and had declared that the Act could not be considered void or deemed to have become void. The Court noted that it was possible to interpret the phrase “any rights conferred by any provisions of this Part” so as to encompass rights that existed earlier under the Government of India Act, 1935, but that such an interpretation would be inappropriate when considering whether the Legislature possessed the competence to enact the law before the Constitution became operative. The learned Attorney‑General argued that Articles 31‑A and 3 1 -B should be read together and that, when read jointly, Article 3 1 -B would merely illustrate situations that would otherwise fall within Article 31‑A, and consequently the same construction applied to Article 3 1 -B should also be applied to Article 31‑A. The Attorney‑General relied on the introductory words of Article 3 1 -B, namely “without prejudice to the generality of the provisions contained in article 31‑A”. The Court found this argument unconvincing. It observed that the words “without prejudice to the generality of the provisions” indicate that the Acts and regulations listed in the Ninth Schedule enjoy protection even if they do not attract Article 31‑A. If every Act in the Ninth Schedule were covered by Article 31‑A, that Article would become redundant. The Court further observed that several Acts listed, specifically items 14 to 20 and many other Acts added later to the Ninth Schedule, do not appear to relate to the estate as defined in Article 31‑B and are not governed by Article 31‑A; rather, Article 31‑B functions as a constitutional tool to place the specified statutes beyond attack on the ground that they violate Part III of the Constitution. Accordingly, the Court held that because the Amending Act was void from its inception, Article 31‑A could not rescue it. Having declared the Amending Act void, the Court stated that it was unnecessary to express an opinion on whether the Act infringed Article 14 of the Constitution. The Court therefore concluded that the Amending Act was void at the outset and that the lands acquired under it should be valued in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Consequently, the decree of the High Court was set aside and the appeals were remanded to the District Court with instructions to dispose of them in accordance with law.

The Court directed that the respondents were required to pay the amount of costs that the appellants had incurred in the proceedings before this Court. In addition, the Court ordered that the respondents also bear the costs that the appellants had spent in the earlier proceedings before the High Court. Regarding the costs associated with the proceedings in the District Court, the Court held that those costs would be determined in accordance with the final outcome of the case. Consequently, the parties were informed that the allocation of the District Court costs would depend upon the result that was now being imposed by this judgment. The Court further indicated that the appeals that had been pending were to be sent back to the lower court for further consideration. Accordingly, the appeals were remanded to the District Court to be disposed of in conformity with the directions set out in this judgment. Thus, the financial responsibility for the litigation expenses incurred at the Supreme Court level and at the High Court level was placed entirely upon the respondents, leaving the appellants relieved of any further cost obligations. The order concerning the District Court costs signified that those costs would be settled in alignment with the substantive findings now affirmed, ensuring consistency across all tiers of the judicial process.