TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1987 (4) TMI 484
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.... was defined to mean the court of Munsif within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the land was situate. "Family holding" was defined as meaning land equal to six standard acres. "Small holder" was defined to mean a land owner owning land not exceeding two basic holdings whose total net annual income including the income from such land did not exceed one thousand two hundred rupees. "Standard acre" was defined to mean one acre of the first class of land or an extent equivalent thereto consisting of any one or more classes of land specified in Part A of Schedule 1 determined in accordance with the formula in Part B of the said Schedule. Chapter II (Sections 4 to 43) contained 'General provisions relating to Tenancies' and Chapter III (Sections 44 to 62) dealt with 'Conferment of owner-ship on tenants'. Section 5 prohibited the creation or continuation of any tenancy in respect of any land after the appointed day and barred the leasing of land for any period whatsoever. It was, however, provided that (a) any small holder might create or continue a tenancy or lease the land owned by him and (b) any land owner who was a minor, a widow, ....
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....e appointed day, as soon as may be after the statement under sub-section(1) is filed, the Court shall after such inquiry as it deems fit, determine the lands which will be non-resumable lands leased to tenants for purposes of this Act. (5) x x x x x x x x x (6) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (5), where the landlord belongs to any of the following categories, namely: (i) minor; (ii) a person incapable of cultivating land by reason of any physical or mental disability, (iii) a widow; (iv) an unmarried woman; Then, the application to the Court for possession of land shall be made, within fifteen months from the appointed day or one year from the date on which- (a) in the case of category (i), he attains majority; (b) in the case of category(ii), he ceases to be subject to such physical or mental disability; (c) in the case of category (iii), she remarries; (d) in the case of category (iv), she marries, whichever is later: Provided that where land is held by two or more joint landlords, the provisions of this sub-section shall not apply unless all such landlords, belong to the categories specified in clauses (i) and (ii) and the application shall be made ....
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....ition that the land resumed from all the tenants holding under the landlord together with the' extent of land, if any, cultivated by the landlord personally and any non-resumable land held by him shall not exceed three family holdings. (5) In respect of lands cultivated with plantation crops, the landlord shall not be entitled to resume more than one-half of the land leased to a tenant. (6) If more tenancies than one are held under the same landlord, then the landlord shall be entitled to resume land only from tenants whose tenancy or tenancies are the shortest in point of duration: Provided that the landlord shall be entitled to resume lands held by protected tenants only if the required extent of land cannot be resumed from tenants other than protected tenants: Provided further that where such tenancy or tenancies shortest in point of duration shall on resumption leave with the tenants land in extent which will be less than a basic holding, the resumption shall be made in respect of tenancy or tenancies next longer in point of duration. (7) The right to resume land by the landlord, other than a landlord owning land not exceeding two basic holdings, shall be subject to th....
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....y and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950, shall be entitled to resume again under section 14 any land left with the same tenant." Section 44 provided for the vesting of certain lands in the State Government. Sub-sec. 1 was as follows: "(1) As soon as may be after the determination of the non-resumable lands under sub-section (4) of section 14, by each Court, the State Government may by notification declare that with effect from such date as may be specified in such notification (hereinafter referred to as the date of vesting) all the non-resumable lands determined by such Court which are leased to tenants, whether protected or otherwise, and all lands leased to permanent and other tenants referred to in the first proviso to clause (29) of sub-section (A) of section 2 in the area within jurisdiction of such Court shall stand transferred to and vest in the State Government." Section 45 provided for the registration of tenants as occupants of land on certain conditions. Section 47 provided for the payment of compensation to the land owner in regard to the extinguishment of rights in lands vesting in the State Government under s. 44. Chapter IV (sections 63 to 79) dealt wi....
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....anted land. The Act was substantially amended in 1974. 'Basic holding' and 'family holding' ceased to be defined. "Ceiling area" was defined to mean the extent of land which the person or family was entitled to hold under s. 63. Section 5 was amended and the provisos were omitted. It was however provided by sub-sec. 2 that the prohibition against creation of tenancies or leases would not apply to tenancies created by a soldier or a seaman. The savings in respect of a minor widow or a minor woman under the original sec. 5 was taken away. Section 14 was omitted. Section 16 was also omitted. Section 44 was amended. The new sub-section 1 of sec. 44 is as follows: "44(1) All lands held by or in the possession of tenants (including tenants against whom a decree or order for eviction or a certificate for resumption is made or issued) immediately prior to the date of commencement of the Amendment Act, other than lands held by them under leases permitted under Section 5, shall, with effect on and from the said date, stand transferred to and vest in the State Government." A new section 48 was introduced providing for the Constitution of Tribunals, a Tri....
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.... legal practitioner from appearing before the Tribunals was in conflict with s. 30 of the Advocates' Act and had,' therefore. to yield. It is necessary for us to mention here that the principal Act was included in the IXth Schedule of the Constitution on October 20, 1965 and the Amendment Act of 1974 was similarly included in the IXth the Schedule on September 7, 1974. We do not think that it is necessary to hark back to the decisions of this court rendered prior to the one in Waman Rao & Ors. v. Union of India, [ 1981] 2 SCR 1. One of the petitioners who presented his case in person did argue that Waman Rao's case to the extent that it upheld Arts. 31-A, 31-B and 31-C and to the extent that it upheld the validity of the legislations impugned therein required reconsideration. We do not agree that it is necessary either to reconsider or to go behind Waman Rao for the purposes of this case. Chandrachud, CJ. speaking for the majority of the judges of the Constitution Bench stated their conclusions in regard to Arts. 31-A, 31-B and 31-C as follows: "(1) The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 which introduced Article 31A into the Constitution with retrospectiv....
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....ential features of the Constitution or its basic structure. (4) All the Writ Petitions and Review Petitions relating to the validity of the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands Ceiling Acts are dismissed with costs." In the course of the submissions, the learned counsel suggested that the 1974 Amendment Act was not a law pertaining to agrarian reform; nor, it was said, was it a law directed towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community were so distributed as best to subserve the common good or that the operation of the economic system did not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment. It was suggested that the 1974 Amendment 'Act far from setting out to achieve these goals set out in quite opposite direction by seeking to reduce to destitution small landlords whose sole means of livelihood was the tenanted land which they were allowed to resume for personal cultivation. It was said that the original Act was very fair as it recognised poverty amongst landlords as well as poverty amongst tenants and afforded a measure of protection to the poorer sections of the landlords. We are unable to agr....
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....ns fell for consideration under s. 48A and it was wholly wrong that the decision of such questions should be left, not to a judicial Tribunal, but to a Tribunal consisting of members nominated by the State Government with no regard for any qualification. Our attention was invited to several decisions of the Karnataka High Court where the functioning of such iII-constituted Tribunals was exposed and castigated. It is true that it was commented in some of those cases that the Tribunals were functioning in a most unjudicial manner. quite often without applying their minds at all to the questions at issue and in some cases, in utter violation of the principles of natural justice. We are unable to see how the mal-functioning of some of the Tribunals can possibly vitiate the provision relating to the Constitution of the Tribunal and the entrustment of the decision of certain issues to the Tribunal. We do not want to enter into a discussion of the question whether a lay Tribunal cannot function more efficiently than judicial Tribunal in resolving certain peculiar questions. There can be no doubt that while the decision of some disputes require a trained judicial mind to be applied to it, ....