TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1976 (11) TMI 210
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....Gaon Sabha of Bedpura claiming common but alternative reliefs. The suit was for injunction or ejectment, on title, of the sole defendant who was the quondam zamindar of the 'estate' which is the subject matter of the suit. The trial Court dismissed the suit whereupon the 2nd plaintiff dropped out of the litigation, as it were, and the State alone pursued the matter by way of appeal against the decree. The High Court partially allowed the appeal and the aggrieved defendant is the appellant before us. 2. An expose of the facts may now be given to the extent necessary for explaining the setting of the contention between the parties. The State of Uttar Pradesh extinguished all zamindari estates by the Act and implemented a scheme of settlement of lands with intermediaries, tenants and others by first vesting all estates in the State and empowering it to vest, divest and re-vest from time to time according to flexible needs and ad hoc requirements, the same estate's in Gaon Sabhas or other local authorities. Settlement of trees, buildings and other specified items in the intermediaries was also part of the agrarian reform. A skeletal picture of the legislation may now be pr....
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....ures and a space of 5 yards running round each 'building'. In the view of the Court hats, bazars, and melas could not be held by a private owner under the scheme of the Act and reliance on the conduct of the cattle market as an indicator of 'appurtenant' area was, therefore, impermissible. The suit was decreed pro tanto. 5. The Gaon Sabha, when defeated in the trial Court, discreetly stepped out of the risks of an appeal but the Government, first plaintiff, claiming to be gravely aggrieved, challenged the dismissal of the suit and was faced with the plea that the land having vested in the Gaon Sabha, on the issue of the notification under Section 117(1) of the Act, the State had no surviving interest in the property and, therefore, forfeited the position of a 'person aggrieved', who alone could competently appeal against a decree. This contention, negatived by the High Court, has been reiterated before us with resourceful embellishments and that, logically, is the first question of law falling for our decision and is the piece de resistance, if we may say so, in this appeal. If the 1st plaintiff's entire interests, by subsequent plenary vesting in the 2....
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....a including land (cultivable or barren), grove-land, forests whether within or outside village boundaries, trees (other than trees in village abadi, holding or grove), fisheries, tanks, ponds, water-channels, ferries, pathways, abadi sites, hats, bazars and melas other than hats, bazars and melas held upon land to which Clauses (a) to (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply, and (ii) in all sub-soil in such estates including rights, if any in mines and minerals, whether being worked or not; shall cease and be vested in the State of Uttar Pradesh free from all encumbrances; * * * 8. Reading the two sister sections together, certain clear conclusions emerge. Emphatically, three things happened on the coming into force of the Act. By virtue of Section 4 the right, title and interest of all intermediaries in every estate, including hats, bazars and melas, stood terminated. Secondly, this whole bundle of interests came to be vested in the State. free from all encumbrances, the quality of the vesting being absolute. Thirdly, one and only one species of property in hats, bazars and melas was expressly excluded from the total vesting of estates in the State, viz., such as had b....
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....from a date to be specified in this behalf, all or any of the following things, namely- * * * * (v) hats, bazars and melas except hats, bazars, and melas held on land to which the provisions of Clauses (a) to (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 18 apply or on sites and areas referred to in Section 9, and * * * * which had vested in the State under this Act shall vest in the Gaon Sabhas or and other local authority established to the whole or part of the village in which the said things are situate, or partly in one such local authority (including a Gaon Sabha) and partly in another: Provided that it shall be lawful for the State Government to make the declaration (sic) subject to such exceptions and conditions as may be specified in the notification. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or in any other law for the time being in force, the State Government may, by general or special order to be published in the manner prescribed in the Gazette, declare that as from a date to be specified in this behalf, all or any of the things specified in Clauses (i) to (vi) of Sub-section (1) which alter their vesting in the State under this Act had been vested in a Gaon S....
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....tate remains the legal master with absolute powers of disposition over the land vested pro tempore in a particular Gaon Sabha, can it be postulated that it has no legal interest in the preservation of that over which it has continuous power of operation, creation and deprivation? Government, despite vesting estates in Gaon Sabhas on the wholesome political principle of decentralisation and local self-government, has and continues to have a constant hold on these estates, may be like a brooding omnipotence descending, when it chooses, to take away what it had given possession of to a Sabha. This is plainly present legal interest in Government and a sort of precarium tenans in the Sabha, notwithstanding the illusory expression 'vesting' which may mislead one into the impression that an absolute and permanent ownership has been created. 14. An overview of these legal prescriptions makes one skeptical about the statutory ideology of autonomous village self-government since, so far as estates are concerned, these Sabhas have been handcuffed and thrown at the mercy or mood of the State Government. The pragmatics of the Act has reduced Gaon Sabhas to obedient holders, for the non....
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....used. The context would quite often provide the key to meaning of the word and the sense it should carry. Its setting would give colour to it and provide a cue to the intention of the legislature in using it, A word, as said by Holmes, is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. 20. In the instant case the Act contemplates taking over of all zamindari rights as part of land reform. However, instead of centralising management of all estates at State level, to stimulate local self-government, the Act gives an enabling power-not obligatory duty-to make over these estates to Gaon Sabhas which, so long as they are in their hands, will look after them through management committees which will be under the statutory control of Government under Section 126. Apart from management, no power is expressly vested in the Sabhas to dispose of the estates absolutely. The fact that as a body corporate it can own and sell property does not mean that the estates vested in a Sabha can be finally sold away, in the teeth of the provisions striking a contrary not....
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....he meaning as 'to give to a person a legally fixed immediate right of present or future enjoyment'. 22. The High Court has sought some English judicial backing for taking liberties with strict and pedantic construction. A ruling of this Court has been aptly pressed into service. 23. There is thus authority for the position that the expression 'vest' is of fluid or flexible content and can if the context so dictates, bear the limited sense of being in possession and enjoyment. Indeed, to postulate vesting of absolute title in the Gaon Sabha by, virtue of the declaration under Section 117(l) of the Act is to stultify Section 117(6). Not that the legislature cannot create a right to divest what has been completely vested but that an explanation of the term 'vesting' which will rationalise and integrate the initial vesting and the subsequent resumption is preferable, more plausible and better fulfils the purpose of the Act. We hold that the State has title to sustain he action in ejectment. 24. Aside from this stand, it is easy to take the view that the 1st plaintiff is a person aggrieved and has the competence to carry an appeal against the dismissal of the ....
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.... for redressal of actual or imminent wrongs. 26. In this wider perspective, who is a 'person aggrieved'? Dhabolkar 1974 1 SCR 306 gives the updated answer : The test is whether the words 'person aggrieved' include 'a person who has a genuine grievance because an order has been made which prejudicially affects his interests'. (p. 315) American jurisprudence has recognised, for instance, the expanding importance of consumer protection in the economic system and permitted consumer organisations to initiate or intervene in actions, although by the narrow rule of 'locus standi', such a course could not have been justified (see p. 807-New York University Law Review, Vol. 46, 1971). In fact, citizen organisations have recently been campaigning for using legal actions for protection of community interest, broadening the scope of 'standing' in legal proceedings (see p. 403-Boston University Law Review, Vol.51, 1971). In the well-known case of Attorney-General of the Gambia v. Peirra Sarr N. 'Jie 1961 A.C. 617), Lord Denning observed about the Attorney-General's standing thus : ...The words 'person aggrieved' are of wide impo....
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.... in the estate. That provision has been set out earlier. The short enquiry is whether the entire land is 'appurtenant' to the buildings. The contention of the defendant flows along these lines. The structures accepted by the High Court as 'buildings' within the scope of Section 9 were part of a cattle fair complex. Even the mandir and the oushadalya fitted into the that total and the integrity of the whole could not be broken up without violating the long years of common enjoyment. It would also be a double injury: (a) to the defendant; and (b) to the community. The hat or mela could not be held by the defendant if the land were snatched away and the Government could do nothing on a land without the buildings belonging to the defendant. May be there is some sociological substance in the presentation but the broader purpose of the section cannot be sacrificed to the marginal cases like the present. The larger objective is to settle with the former intermediary only such land as is strictly appurtenant to buildings, all the rest going to the State for implementation of the agrarian reform policy. 30. The key to the solution of the dispute lies in ascertaining whether....