TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1957 (8) TMI 35
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....hota Nagpur Division, (Annexure B), and the order dated 29-6-1956, of the Board of Revenue (Annexure C) to the applications of the petitioners. 4. The petitioner in Case No. 775 has further prayed for a writ in the nature of prohibition restraining opposite party 1, who is the Government of India through the Aerodrome Officer, Ranchi; opposite party 2, the Deputy Commissioner, Ranchi and, opposite party 3, the Commissioner, Chota Nagpur Division, Ranchi, from interfering with the possession of opposite party 4 to 6. Opposite party 4 is petitioner in Case 645 and opposite parties 5 and 6 are petitioners in Case 701. 5. The Government of India through the Aerodrome Officer, Ranchi, opposite party, started a proceeding before the Deputy Commissioner. Ranchi. under Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Bihar Land Encroachment Act, 1950, against the petitioners of all the three cases, for unauthorised occupation of certain plots, which, according to it were the property of the Government of India and were meant for the air-field at Ranchi having been acquired for that purpose under the Defence of India Rules during the years 1939 to 1944. 6. The Deputy Commissioner, opposite party, held that th....
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....s remained in Khas possession of the Bank petitioner as owner and occupier thereof. The further case of the Bank is that out of these 37.63 Acres, which were in its Khas possession, it sold, on 17-6-1952, a portion of plot 340 in village Hetu, by a registered sale deed, to the father of the petitioner, Radha Krishna Prasad Sahu, petitioner in case 645; and, on 16-2-1952, by three registered sale deeds, some lands out of the other lands in their Khas possession, to Pasu-pati Paul end Srimati Nanda Rani Paul, petitioners in Case 701. 11. In case 645, the case of the petitioner, Radha Kishun Prasad Sahu is that the lands in dispute were requisitioned, no doubt, under Rule 75A of the Defence of India Rules, but on the expiry of the Defence of India Rules in 1951, the ownership of these lands reverted to the Bank, which, in its turn, sold them to the different persons mentioned above, who came in possession thereof since the date of their purchase. The petitioner's further case was that he did not own, nor had he any concern with plots 1270, 1271 and 1272 of village Hundru and plot No. 340 of village Hetu, which were the subject matter of the proceeding under Sections 3, 4 and 5 ....
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....hat even Clauses (b) to (f) of Sub-section (ii) of Section 2 did not cover the present case, and therefore, the lands in dispute were not 'public property' within the meaning of Section 2(ii) of the Act so as to attract the application of the Act here, and, as such, the proceeding started against the petitioners of all the three cases was ultra vires and without jurisdiction. 16. The first contention of Mr. Chatterji that Section 2(ii)(a) of the Act did not apply to the present case is correct, and, therefore, it must be accepted. But. even then, simply because Section 2(ii)(a) did not apply to the present case, it would not mean that no other clause of Section 2(ii) would cover the present case. The second contention of Mr. Chatterji, therefore, that the other Clauses (b) to (f) of Section 2(ii) would also not govern the present case is not correct. It is true that Clauses (b), (c), (d) and (f) of Section 2(ii) would not cover the present case, but the facts of the case clearly come within the mischief of clause (e) of Section 2(ii) of the Act. I would, therefore, consider the argument of Mr. Chatterji based on clause (e) of Section 2(ii) of the Act. for which purpose it ....
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.... specially applicable to penal statutes. But under no circumstances, and regardless of the type of statute involved, must the rule be used where the language of the statute under consideration is plain and there is no uncertainty. Its use is permissible only as an aid to the Court in its attempt to ascertain the intent of the law makers. Nor will it to be proper for the Court to follow the rule where to do so will defeat or impair the plain purpose of the legislature. It cannot be employed to restrict the operation of an Act within narrower limits than was intended by the lawmakers. Nor is the rule to be applied where specific words enumerate subjects which greatly differ from each other, or where the specific words exhaust all the objects of the class mentioned. Under these circumstances, the general words must have a different meaning from that of the specific words or be meaningless; See Crawford, The Construction. of Statutes, 1940 Edition, pages 326-28. 21. It should be remembered that the rule of construction, which is called the ejusdem generis doctrine, or sometimes the doctrine 'noscitur a sociis', which is that, where general wards immediately follow or are clo....
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....mises which are in the occupation of the landlord, the tenant or the sub-tenant, as the case may be, shall be deemed to become vacant when such landlord ceases to be in occupation......upon termination of his tenancy, eviction, or assignment or- transfer in any other manner of his interest in the promises 'or otherwise' (underlined (here in ' ') by me)". The argument presented there was that in that case admittedly there was no termination, eviction, assignment or transfer, and that the words "or otherwise" must be construed as ejusdem generis with the words immediately preceding them. This argument, which was pressed as an off-shoot of the main argument, was ejected by their Lordships. In delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court his Lordship Sinha, J. observed : "In the second place, the rule of ejusdem generis sought to be pressed in aid of the petitioner can possibly have no application. The Legislature has been cautious and thorough-going enough to bar all avenues of escape by using the words "or otherwise". Those words are not words of limitation but of extension so as to cover all possible ways in which a vacancy may occur....
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....there is no doubt that if the ejusdem generis doctrine is applied, it would imply a departure from the natural meaning of words in order to give them a meaning which may or may not have been the intention of the Legislature. If the intention of the Legislature would have been to include in the words "or otherwise" the same kind of transfer which is contemplated by the earlier words "by way o1" transfer", there was no necessity of using the general words "or otherwise", in that, the earlier specific words "by way of transfer" were wide enough to include all kinds of transfers. An interpretation of the general words "or otherwise", limiting them to the matters and things of the same kind as the previous words would make the general words "or otherwise" following the pre ceding specific words, redundant In my opinion, therefore, the proper construction to be applied to the present case is to construe the general words "or otherwise" in such a way as to carry out the object sought to he accomplished by them, so, far as it can be collected from the language employed. The Legislature, when it used the words "....
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....that the "purpose" must be read ejusdem generis with the specific purposes mentioned earlier in the statute. 28. He also relied on Brigade Commander, Meerut Sub-Area v. Ganga Prasad 1956 All LJ 251: ((S) AIR 1956 All 5071 (G), but this case also has no application, because there as well, there was no question of construction of general words like "or otherwise" and, therefore, this case can be of no assistance to Mr. Chatterji. 29. In my judgment, therefore, in view of the above pronouncement of the Supreme Court In similar circumstances, it must be held that an acquisition under the Defence of India Rules by the Government of India which is a statutory transfer or a transfer by operation of law would come within the pun-view and scope of the words "public property" mentioned In Section 2(ii) (e) of the Bihar Land Encroachment Act, 1950. The contention of Mr. Chatterji, therefore, that the lands, which were acquired by the Government under the Defence of India Rules, were not "public property" within the meaning of even Section 2(ii)(e) of the Act must be rejected. 30. At one stage, it was argued that the lands had been acquired under the ....
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....rsuance of this rule. (3) Where a notice of acquisition is served on the owner of the property or published in the official gazette under Sub-rule (2), then at the beginning of the day on which the notice is so served or published, the property shall vest in Government free from any mortgage, pledge, lien or other similar encumbrance, and the period of the requisition thereof shall end. xx xx xx" 33. It will appear from rule 75A (3) that when a notice of acquisition is served on the owner of the property or published in the official gazette under Sub-rule (2) of Rule 75A then at the beginning of the day on which the notice is so served or published -the property shall vest in Government free from any mortgage, pledge, lien or other similar encumbrance, and the period of the requisition thereof shall end. It is, therefore, clear from Rule 75A that the Government has been given the power to requisition any property under Sub-rule (1) of Rule 75A of the Defence of India Rules, and, it has further been empowered to acquire the requisitioned property, if it so desires, in pursuance of Rule 75A, and, when the Government intends to acquire such a requisitioned property, a notice....
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....n, or it may vest in a limited sense, as indicated in the context in which it may have been used in a particular piece of legislation." 35. Here, in Rule 75A (3) of the Defence of India Rules, we have similar words "the property shall vest in Government free From any mortgage, pledge, lien or other similar encumbrance" like the words "vest absolutely in the Government free from all encumbrances" occurring in Sections 16 and 17 of the Land Acquisition Act. The use of the word ''absolutely'' in Sections 16 and 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, and the absence of this word in Rule 75A (3) will not make any difference, in that, the word "absolutely'' only makes the intention of the Legislature more emphatic, and nothing more. It has been used only as abundang cautela as an abundant caution, in that Abundans Cautela Non Nocet, that is, excess of caution does no harm. The words "the property shall vest in Government free from any mortgage, pledge, lien, or other similar encumbrance" alone are clear manifestations of the intention of the Legislature that the vesting of the property is not for any limited purpose or limited du....
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....b-section (1). of Section 23 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, in so far as the same can be made applicable. 40. In such circumstances, it cannot be said that the disputed lands were acquired without payment of any compensation to the owner of the disputed lands. It is not the case of any party that when the disputed lands were acquired by the Government under Rule 75-A (3) no compensation was paid to the Bank which was the owner of the property. It cannot, therefore, be assumed that the disputed lands were acquired by the Government without paying any compensation to the owner or without following the procedure laid down in Section 19 of the Defence of India Act. The learned Commissioner, however, has in his order, said that there could be no doubt whatsoever that the plots in dispute have been acquired and compensation paid for. The contention of Mr. Chatterji based on this ground also must, therefore, be overruled. 41. An attempt was made to challenge the amount of assessment made under Section 3 of the Bihar Land Encroachment Act, 1950, but this question is not open to challenge, because if the Act applied, it gave Jurisdiction to the Deputy Commissioner or to the other aut....