Ram Krissen Singh vs Divisional Forest Officer, Bankura

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeals Nos. 781-784 of 1963

Decision Date: 04 August 1964

Coram: N. Rajagopala Ayyangar, P.B. Gajendragadkar, K.N. Wanchoo, M. Hidayatullah, J.C. Shah

The Supreme Court of India rendered its judgment on four August 1964 in the matter of Ram Krissen Singh versus the Divisional Forest Officer of Bankura and others. The opinion was authored by Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar, sitting with Justices P. B. Gajendragadkar, K. N. Wanchoo, M. Hidayatullah and J. C. Shah. The petitioner, Ram Krissen Singh, challenged the actions of the Divisional Forest Officer, Bankura Division and additional respondents. The case citation is recorded as 1965 AIR 625 and 1965 SCR (1) 1. The statutory provision under consideration was the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953, enacted as West Bengal Act 1 of 1954 and later amended by West Bengal Act 25 of 1957, specifically Section 5(aa). The central issue involved the construction and validity of the amendment concerning the vesting of rights to cut zamindari trees in the State.

According to the facts, the zamindar of Simlapal in West Bengal had granted the petitioner a right to cut trees in certain forested portions of the zamindari estate. That right was subsequently obstructed by proceedings initiated under the West Bengal Private Forests Act, 1948, prompting the petitioner to file a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. While the petition was pending, the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953, was enacted, providing that from the date specified in a notification issued under Section 4, the property and interests enumerated in Section 5 would vest in the State Government. The Forest Department asserted that the petitioner’s right to cut trees fell within Section 5 and therefore had already vested in the State. However, several decisions of the Calcutta High Court rejected that view, holding that a right to cut trees granted by an intermediary to a third party was not covered by Section 5. In response, the State Legislature passed Act 25 of 1957, inserting Section 5(aa) which stipulated that upon proper publication of a notification under Section 4, and from the date of vesting, all lands in any estate comprising a forest together with all rights to trees therein or their produce, held by an intermediary or any other person, would vest in the State notwithstanding any contrary court judgment, decree or order. The petitioner’s writ petition, which was heard after this amendment, was dismissed, and the subsequent appeal to a Division Bench also failed. The petitioner then obtained a certificate of fitness under Article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution, enabling an appeal before the Supreme Court. The principal question before the Court was whether the wording of Section 5(aa) was sufficient and appropriate to cause the vesting of the petitioner’s right to cut trees in the State, even though that right had been transferred by contract from the zamindar to the petitioner.

When the right to cut trees vested on the prescribed date belonged not to the intermediary or zamindar but to another person who had obtained that right through a contract with the intermediary, the Court examined the language of section 5 (aa). The Court held that the expression “together with” used in the provision did not impose a limitation that the right to the trees could vest only when it formed an integral part of the right to the land. In the context of the statute, “together with” was interpreted merely as “as well as,” and it did not create a condition that the owner of the land must also own the tree‑cutting right. Moreover, the wording “held by an intermediary or any other person” was not confined to situations where a single individual possessed the entire bundle of interests in the land, the trees and the produce thereof. The provision was understood to apply equally to cases in which the land remained in the hands of an intermediary while the right to fell the trees or to receive the produce was granted to a different person. The Court further noted that the fact that the section had been amended to address earlier decisions under the original enactment was a relevant consideration in construing its meaning and could not be disregarded as an irrelevant factor.

The Court also ruled that the mere absence of a statutory provision for compensating persons such as the appellant did not demonstrate that their interests fell outside the vesting operation of section 5 (aa). While a lack of compensation provision might raise a constitutional question regarding the validity of the vesting, it could not override the clear language of the section. The Court observed that after the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution and the inclusion of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953 (West Bengal Act 1 of 1954) in Schedule IX, the failure to provide compensation for the acquisition of the appellant’s rights would not render the Act or the acquisition unconstitutional. The judgment was rendered in Civil Appeals Nos. 781 to 784 of 1963, arising from the Calcutta High Court order of 17 March 1961. The appeals were presented by counsel for the appellant and counsel for the respondents, and the judgment was delivered by Ayyangar J. These appeals reached the Supreme Court on certificates granted under Article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution.

The appeal before the Supreme Court arose from a certificate granted by the High Court under Article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution, and the matters presented for consideration concerned the proper construction of Section 5(aa) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953 (West Bengal Act 1 of 1954) as it had been amended by West Bengal Act 25 of 1957. The factual circumstances underlying each of the four appeals were substantially similar, and they raised a common question of law that had already been identified. Consequently, for the purpose of disposing of all the appeals, it was deemed sufficient to set out the facts of any one case, and the Court therefore chose to narrate the facts of Civil Appeal 781 of 1963. In that case, the Zamindar of Simlapal, which lay in the Collectorate of Bankura, executed a contract with the appellant, Ram Krissen Singh. By a deed dated 3 September 1946, the Zamindar granted the appellant the right to cut trees in certain demarcated portions of the Zamindari’s forests, upon receipt of a consideration of Rs 7,131 and 8 paise. The deed specified that the appellant’s right to cut trees would terminate on 14 April 1955. The appellant commenced the tree‑cutting operations and continued to do so for the first few years. Subsequently, the State’s Forest Officers, exercising the authority conferred upon them by the West Bengal Private Forests Act, 1948, intervened to prevent the appellant from further cutting. In response, the appellant filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking a writ of certiorari to set aside the orders issued by the Forest Officers, and also prayed for an injunction restraining the officers from taking possession of, and from cutting or disposing of, the forest lands covered by his agreement. By the time this petition was filed, the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953 (Act 1 of 1954) – hereinafter referred to as “the Act” – had already been enacted. In the counter‑affidavit filed in opposition to the petition, reliance was placed on the provisions of the Act, contending that the estate belonging to the Zamindar, which included the forest, together with all rights to the trees therein, regardless of the holder of those rights, had vested in the State by operation of Section 5 of the Act, on the basis of a notification issued under Section 4. By the date the writ petition was listed for hearing, the West Bengal Legislature, having taken note of certain judgments of the Calcutta High Court which held that the language of Section 5 of the Act – which enumerated the property or interest in property that would vest in the Government – did not encompass a pre‑existing right to cut trees in a forest granted to a third party, amended the vesting provision. The amendment introduced Section 5(aa), intended to operate retrospectively from the commencement of the principal Act. Section 5(aa) was framed as follows: “5. Upon the due publication of a notification under section 4, on and from the date of vesting(aa) …”

In this case, the Court recorded that the amendment introduced the following provision: “all lands in any estate comprised in a forest together with all rights to the trees therein or to the produce thereof and held by an intermediary or any other person shall, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any judgment, decree or order of any court or Tribunal, vest in the State.” After the amendment was brought to the attention of the Court, the petitioner was permitted to amend his writ petition by adding two sets of allegations: first, concerning the construction of the newly inserted section, and second, concerning its constitutional validity. The amended petition was scheduled for argument in December 1958. The learned Single Judge delivered a judgment on 24 December 1958, relying on several earlier decisions of his on the same point, and dismissed the petition. An appeal against that dismissal was filed before a Division Bench constituted under the Letters Patent. The Division Bench also dismissed the appeal, but the learned judges granted a certificate of appeal under Article 133(1)(c), which is why the matter now stood before this Court.

The principal question that required consideration was whether the wording of section 5(aa) was sufficiently broad to vest the right to cut trees in the State when, at the moment of vesting, that right did not belong to the intermediary or the zamindar but had been granted to a third person by a contract with the intermediary. Counsel for the appellant, Mr Chatterjee, argued that the provision only transferred the land and any other rights possessed by an intermediary, and that clause (aa) did not contemplate situations where the right to the trees had been severed from the right to the land and had already vested in a third person at the date of vesting. To support this contention, the counsel emphasized two expressions contained in the clause. The first expression was the words “together with,” and the second was the phrase “and held by an intermediary or any other person.”

Regarding the phrase “together with,” the appellant’s counsel submitted that vesting would occur only when the right to the trees formed an integral part of the right to the land, so that the two rights were inseparable. According to that view, if the two rights had been separated before the vesting, only the land that remained with the intermediary would vest in the State, while the right to the trees would not. The Court was unable to accept this line of reasoning. It held that the term “together” was employed not to impose a condition of unity between the land and the right to cut trees, but merely to list the different categories of property that would vest in the State. In the present context, the word meant essentially the same as “as well as” and did not require that the right to the trees also be owned by the landowner.

Furthermore, the Court observed that the words “or to the produce thereof,” which follow the reference to the trees, reinforced this interpretation. Read as a separate option, those words indicated that, in addition to the land and the right to the trees, the right to the produce of the trees would also vest independently in the State. Consequently, the Court concluded that the clause was not limited to situations where the intermediate holder possessed both the land and the tree‑cutting right; it also covered cases where a third person held either the land, the right to the trees, or the right to the produce.

The Court observed that the phrase “thereof” placed after the words “or to the produce” reinforces the point that, when these words are read separately because of the conjunction “or”, they convey that not only the land in the estate and the right to cut trees, but also, independently of those, the right to the produce of the trees on that land, would vest in the State. Turning to the words “and held by an intermediary”, the Court held that counsel for the petitioner could not legitimately argue that both the land and the right to the trees must belong to the intermediary for the clause to apply, since the words “held by an intermediary” are followed by the expression “any other person”. The Court explained that the “other person”, meaning a person distinct from the intermediary, could possess a right to the land, a right to the trees, or a right to the produce. By using the phrase “or any other person”, the legislature evidently intended to cover a situation such as that of the appellant, who may not own the land held by the intermediary but does hold a right to the trees on that land. Moreover, the Court found it untenable to read the words “held by an intermediary or any other person” as applying only when a single individual possesses the entire bundle of interests—land, trees, and produce—whether that individual is the intermediary or another person. Instead, the language clearly applies equally to cases where the land belongs to an intermediary while the right to the trees or to their produce belongs to a different person. The Court then noted an additional relevant aspect. The amendment that added clause (aa) to section 5 was introduced in response to certain decisions of the High Court of Calcutta, which had held that when an intermediary granted a right to cut trees or to take forest produce, those rights remained unaffected by the vesting provision in section 5 as it existed before the amendment. The Court observed that accepting counsel for the petitioner’s argument would render the amendment purposeless. While acknowledging that if the plain language of the amendment were insufficient to address the present case, the legislature’s intention to overturn the High Court decisions could not be the sole decisive factor, the Court nonetheless concluded that, if the ordinary construction of the words is adopted, the fact that the amendment was made to correct earlier judgments is not an irrelevant consideration. Finally, counsel for the petitioner submitted that the scheme of the Act required compensation for every interest acquired by the State under the vesting power of section 5, and that the Act did not contain any provision for such compensation.

The Court observed that the legislation contained no provision for compensating individuals such as the appellant, and consequently the appellant’s counsel argued that an interest of that nature did not fall within the vesting provision of section 5 (aa). The Court recognised that this argument was legitimate and that, had there been any uncertainty in the construction of section 5 (aa), the circumstance highlighted by the appellant’s counsel would have carried considerable weight. Nonetheless, after examining the plain language of section 5 (aa), the Court concluded that it could not accept the appellant’s contention. The absence of a compensation clause might render the vesting provision unconstitutional, and that issue had indeed been presented before the High Court; the Court noted that it would consider that point in due course, but it could not allow the lack of a compensation provision to obscure the clear effect of the words employed in section 5 (aa). Another argument raised before the High Court claimed that the enactment was unconstitutional because it failed to provide compensation to persons in the appellant’s position whose rights to cut trees had become vested in the State. The appellant’s counsel pointed out that the High Court judges had upheld the validity of the enactment by holding that compensation had, in fact, been provided. The appellant’s counsel further drew the Court’s attention to the quoted provisions and submitted that the High Court judges had erred in their interpretation and that, in reality, no compensation was made available. The Court noted that the question of the constitutional validity of the amending Act was not open for review because the appellant’s counsel had not disputed the fact that, after the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution and the inclusion of the West Bengal Act 1 of 1954 in Schedule IX, the lack of a compensation provision for the acquisition of the appellant’s rights would not render the West Bengal Act or the acquisition thereunder unconstitutional. The Court therefore held that the appeals failed, dismissed the appeals, and ordered that no costs be awarded.