1947 (2) TMI 24

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....eeds, and also an injunction to restrain the defendants as mortgagors from prosecuting their petition for redemption of the lands in the Court of the Collector under the Punjab Act 4 [iv] of 1938 (hereinafter called the impugned Act) and for restitution of the lands under the provisions of the Act. 3. The object of the impugned Act was the relief of mortgagors by giving them restitution of the mortgaged premises on conditions more favorable than those under the mortgage deed and by providing for a procedure before the Collector, which was more summary than that before the ordinary Courts. The relevant sections of the impugned Act are as follows: 3. (1) The expression 'land' means land which is not occupied as the site of any building in a town or village and is occupied or let for agricultural purposes or for purposes subservient to agriculture or for pasture, and includes (a) the sites of buildings and other structures on such land; (b) a share in the profits of an estate or holding; (c) any dues or any fixed percentage of the land revenue payable by an inferior landowner to a superior landowner; (d) a right to receive rent; ....

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....laim to enforce any right under a mortgage declared extinguished under this Act, or to question the validity of any proceedings under this Act. 4. The main points of objection to the validity of the impugned Act were baaed on Ss. 100 and 107, Government of India Act, 1935 (hereinafter called the Constitution Act). Section 100 is in the following terms: 100. (1) Notwithstanding anything in the two next succeeding sub-sections, the Federal Legislature has, and a Provincial Legislature has not, power to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List I in Sch. 7 to this Act (hereinafter called the 'Federal Legislative List'). (2) Notwithstanding anything in the next succeeding subsection, the Federal Legislature, and, subject to the preceding sub-section a Provincial Legislature also, have power to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List III in the said Schedule hereinafter called the 'Concurrent Legislative List'). (3) Subject to the two preceding subsections, the Provincial Legislature has, and the Federal Legislature has not, power to make laws for a Province or any part thereof with respect to an....

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....hether the impugned Act was or was not valid, the Punjab Province applied for and was granted leave to intervene in the proceedings, and was the only respondent which actually appeared before this Board on the hearing of the appeal. Owing to the death of one of the appellants a change of parties had taken place in the appellants but that is not material. 12. Certain grounds of objections which were taken before the Courts in India were not relied upon by the appellants before their Lordships. The stress of the argument before the Board was laid on Ss. 100 and 107. The respondent contended that the provisions, of the impugned Act were wholly within item 21 supplemented if need be by item 2 of the Provincial Legislative List, that accordingly the respondent did not need to rely for the validity of the Act on any powers of the Province under the Concurrent Legislative List and therefore s. 107 was irrelevant to the decision of the case. The appellants on the other hand contended that the impugned Act went beyond the limits of the legislative powers of the Province under List 2 and could not be supported by invoking concurrent powers of the Province under List 3 because the provisio....

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....item 21 itself or by other parts of the constitution which has to be read as a whole. As to item 21, "Land", the governing word is followed by the rest of the item, which goes on to say "that is to say". These words introduce the most general concept- "rights in or over land." 'Eights in land must include general rights like full ownership , or leasehold or all such rights. "Bights overland" would include easements or other collateral rights, whatever form they might take. Then follow words which are not words of limitation but of explanation or illustration, giving instances which may furnish a clue for particular matters: thus there are the words "relation of landlord and tenant and collection of rents." These words are appropriate to lands which are not agricultural equally with agricultural lands. Rent is that which issues from the land. Then the next two sentences specifically refer to agricultural lands, and are to be read with items 7, 8 and 10 of List 3. These deal with methods of transfer or alienation or devolution which may be subject to federal legislation but do not concern the land itself, a sphere in which the provincial and federal powers are concurrent, s....

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....ubservient to agriculture or for pasture." The addition of the word "pasture" has been relied on as extending the scope of the Act beyond agriculture, but pasture is certainly "land" within Item 21 of List 2. It may have been mentioned ex abundanti cautela but in any case it is sufficiently allied to agriculture generally to be treated as a species of agricultural land or at least as land occupied or let for purposes subservient to agriculture and as such within the general scope of an Act Sealing with agricultural land. Section 3 of the Act goes on, it is true, to give a number of specific types of land which are included, but they are all govern-ed by the controlling words of sub s. (1) which limits the whole Act to agricultural land in the sense already stated. Thus head (b) of sub-s. (1) of s. 3, must be read as referring to an estate or holding in the only class of land with which the Act deals. The same is true of all the other beads in the sub-section, dues, rent, water rights, occupancy, trees, all come within the category of rights in or over land within Item 21, List 2, and all are governed by the same controlling reference to agriculture or agricultural purposes. This re....