TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1986 (11) TMI 394
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.... On the 1st April, 1977, an open auction was held in the presence of Shri Awadhesh Prasad Singh, Deputy Collector Gaya, for the settlement of hat in Khizersarai for the year 1977-78. The petitioner along with others participated therein and deposited Rs. 600/- as security money and the bid was knocked down in favour of the petitioner for Rs. 11,501/- only as the highest bidder. It is the petitioner's claim that he later deposited Rs. 5,400/- with the Anchal Adhikari, though, admittedly, no receipt whatsoever was issued by him. It is then averred on behalf of the petitioner that neither any parwana or any toll chart was issued in favour of the petitioner and further no registered lease deed was executed betwixt the respondent State and the petitioner, as required by Rule 7-T of the Bihar Land Reforms Rules, 1951. It is his case that only by virtue of the terms of agreement executed in the Prescribed Form 'P(4)' that the arrears of rent or interest, etc., with regard to such settlement can be made recoverable under the Bihar and Orissa Public Demands Recovery Act, 1914, (hereinafter to be referred to as 'the Act'). The further case sought to be set up on behalf of....
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....r had put his signatures on the bid sheet dated 1-4-1977 in token of the fact that he had agreed to abide by the order or instructions of the Officer and that he had agreed to take settlement at Rs. 11,501/-. It is reiterated that the petitioner had in fact continuously collected tolls after the bid was knocked down in his favour. The Anchal Adhikari directed the Circle Inspector to hold an enquiry about the collecting of the tolls and vide his report (Annexure 'C') he clearly held that the petitioner was collecting the same from Khizersarai Bazar ever since 1-4-1977. The other pleadings made on behalf of the petitioner are stoutly controverted and the impugned orders, Annexures 3 and 4, are averred to be legal and unimpeach-able. 4. This writ petition originally came up before my learned Brother Hasan, J. sitting singly. Before him reliance on behalf of the petitioner was sought to be placed on 1980 BBCJ (HC) 344 (supra). Expressing some doubt about the correctness of the view therein the matter was referred to the Division Bench. For somewhat similar reasons the Division Bench referred the case to the larger Bench. That is how it is before us now. 5. Mr. Rana Pratap....
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....issa; And whereas the previous sanction of the Governor-General has been obtained, under Section 5 of the Indian Councils Act, 1892, to the passing of this Act. It is hereby enacted as follows : --x x x x x " "3. Definitions.-- In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context : -- "(4) 'movable property' includes growing crops : (6) 'public demand' means any arrear or money mentioned or referred to irr Schedule I, and includes any interest which may, by law, be charge'able thereon up to the date on which a certificate is signed under Part II" and "Schedule I. 1. Any arrear of revenue which remains due in the following circumstances, namely; xxxxx 2. Any arrear of revenue which is due from a farmer on account of an estate held by him in farm, and is not paid on the latest day of payment fixed under Section 3 of the Bengal Land-revenue Sales Act, 1859 (XI of 1859). 3. Any money which is declared by any law for the time being in force to be recoverable or realizable as an arrear of revenue or land-revenue, or by the process authorized for the recovery ....
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....sorts to the Civil Courts for debts due to him, in the case of State the public exchequer cannot, by the very nature of things, resort to the ordinary civil process for the recovery of all sums due to it. Necessarily a special procedure for enforcing its own demands is resorted to by the State in the interest of public exchequer because it would be impossible to carry on the business of government if its revenues were all to be referable to regular litigation in Civil Courts. There, thus, arises a concept of public demands in the nature of land revenue, rents, taxes, fines and other dues, in respect of which the primal need is a special summary procedure for their recovery where they are not paid or denied. Perhaps the classic example in this context is that of land revenue which is a special feature in India and the modes of its recovery and realisation historically go back to the earliest time. For our purposes it is wholly unnecessary to delve too far down in history and it suffices to notice that under early British rule the customary modes of demand and coercion for the recovery of land revenue both before and subsequent to the permanent settlement were resorted to. One of the....
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....edule 1 and include also any interest which may be chargeable thereon. Yet again it deserves highlighting that Section 3(6) of the Act is not merely an inclusive definition but expressly says that the public demand means whatever may be specified in Schedule 1. In the result even the broad sweep of public demand is further extended by the statute herein and, in my view, designedly so. In logical essence, this leads to the result that for the purposes of this Act a public demand includes all arrears of revenue or any money due or demand payable which finds place in Schedule I even by reference. It seems patent that the legislature has deliberately not attempted to define public demand or limiting the same. All the arrears of revenue, money or payable demands which the legislature chooses to incorporate in Schedule I become by virtue of the definition" under Section 3(6) a public demand of which recovery can be made under the Act. The scheme of the definition under Section 3(6) of the Act and the frame of the articles of the schedule complementary thereto thus become a key to the interpretation of these provisions. 10. Now it needs no great erudition to hold from the 69 sections o....
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.... advantage; the body of persons whose advantage is bound up in anything;". In the New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, the relevant meaning of the word 'interest' is- "Thing in which one is concerned, principle in which a party is concerned; party having a common interest; pecuniary stake." The learned Advocate-General had rightly and forcefully contended that the word 'interest' employed in Article 7 is to be given its broad dictionary meanings aforesaid. He contended plausibly and, in my view, rightly that the inherent fallacy which underlies the stand taken on behalf of the petitioner is in construing the plain word 'interest' as if it is the legal term of art connoted by the phrase "right, title and interest" and thereafter equating it therewith. Imbued as we are by legal phraseology, one tends sub-consciously to give a technical legal meaning to an otherwise word of common parlance. The learned Advocate-General rightly highlighted that it is not well warranted to read the word 'interest' when the legislature has deliberately prefixed it with the word 'any' as well in the legalistic sense of a right, title or interest in immo....
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....ct, confine and restrict it. Indeed everything points to a broader and liberal interpretation thereof. Taking the concrete example in the present case, the learned Advocate-General highlighted that herein it is common ground that the petitioner had deposited security money, had participated in the open auction and the bid was knocked down in his favour. It was even pinpointed that thereafter he claimed to have deposited one half of the bid money and it is common ground that a bid sheet was duly prepared and issued in his favour. The firm concurrent finding of fact by the Certificate Officer and the Appellate Collector is that the petitioner was put in possession of the Hat and had actually exercised that right continuously for well-nigh nine months by making the collection of tolls thereat. In this context would it possibly be said that he did not hold any interest in the Hat and was not liable to the Collector for the bid amount which was a condition of the use and enjoyment of such a Hat? The answer seems to be too plain to call for further elaboration. 13. This matter then deserves examination from another refreshing angle. The contention of the learned counsel for the petiti....
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....J., in Smt. Shantabai v. State of Bombay, AIR 1958 SC 532:-- "In a lease, one enjoys the property but has , no right to take it away. In a profits a prendre one has a licence to enter on the land, not for the purpose of enjoying it, but for removing something from it, namely, a part of the produce of the soil." It is plain from the above that a profits a prendre is somewhat lower than a lease of an immovable property. Therefore, if a lease, which is a much more substantive interest in land can exist by oral agreement and delivery for period of a year or less, plainly enough profits a prendre for a year or less can doubly be so created by agreement and delivery. Even a legal interest for a year or less either by way of a lease or profits a prendre in land can well be created without the requirement of a formally executed deed and registration thereof. To contend in abstract, that no interest in land whatsoever can be created without the aforesaid formalities is itself plainly untenable. 15. Now, apart from the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act, the larger aspect is that Article 7 of the Schedule is not to be myopically construed in isolation but in the larger....
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....quirement, to read the necessity of a duly executed registered document for the applicability of Article 7 appears to me as some what incongruous and contrary to known canons of construction. 17. Lastly, it deserves highlighting that it is an error to first read Article 7 as confined to holding any interest in land alone and then to invoke all the strictest provisions of the Transfer of Property Act and the Registration Act therefor. Plainly enough the phrase "any interest in land, pasturage, forest-rights, fisheries or the like" has to be construed as a whole and not confined to its opening part as any interest in land alone. Article 7 is expressly mandated to cover any interest in pasturage, forest-rights, fisheries or the like as well apart from land stricto sensu. However what appears to be a clue to the interpretation and indicative of the width of the provision of the words "or the like" is advisedly inserted by the legislature herein and coupled with "other things" at the end of the article. Plainly enough the enumeration herein is not exhaustive but merely illustrative. It names four things as an illustration and the rest are left wide open by the phrase "or the like". T....
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....alf of the petitioner is to be accepted then the necessary result is that even though the petitioner was put in possession and has collected the tolls for full nine months on the authority of bid sheet and a contingent settlement in his favour, yet no recovery can be made by the Collector from him, on the admitted ground that no formal registered deed was executed betwixt the parties. Any suit by the collector to recover the amount must also necessarily fail for identical reasons. The end result is that the petitioner would be legally entitled to defalcate the amounts of tolls which have been found to have been collected by him. The construction advocated on behalf of the petitioner would lead to the result that if the settlee of a Hat, Bazar and Mela can delay and later decline execution of a registered deed, then despite the collection of tolls by him, the Collector cannot recover the same either under the Act or by way of a suit. A construction that would lead to such an anomalous and, if I may say so, mischievous result is not to be easily adhered to. Indeed it was pointed out on behalf of the respondent State that this is the usual result ensuing from the view taken in ILR (19....
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....e petitioners to maintain a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution before the Supreme Court. There is not and, indeed, cannot be, any dispute with the settled proposition that fishery rights are a profits a prendre arising out of land and as such immovable property. A somewhat similar view with regard to the licence and the right to cut trees in the forest again fell for consideration before their Lordships in Smt. Shantabai v. State of Bombay, AIR 1958 SC 532. Therein also it was held that unregistered documents granting the petitioner a right to cut trees in forest land and the subsequent stoppage from doing so on the vesting of the forest in the State gave rise to no infraction of fundamental right which could possibly be enforced under Article 32 before the final Court. Both these cases cannot in any way advance the case of the petitioner because no issue whatsoever of the maintainability of the writ petition or the infraction of any fundamental or legal rights arises herein. Yet again the reliance by the learned counsel for the petitioner on the Full Bench judgment in Chetlal Sao v. The State of Bihar 1986 BBCJ (HC) 109 : (AIR 1986 Pat 267) is equally misconceived.....
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....nd profits derivable from a Hat can be validly mortgaged, can possibly be of no aid for the solution of the question. The very question at issue seems to have been begged by observing that because there was not an enforceable concluded contract duly registered between the parties, it would follow that no recovery under Article 7 of Schedule 1 could be made. With the deepest deference to the learned Judges and in the light of the exhaustive discussion earlier, I am constrained to hold that the said judgment does not lay down the law correctly and has, consequently, to be overruled. 22. Once the judgment in S.A. Mannan's case (ILR (1958) Pat 302) (supra) was rendered, it seems, it was not thereafter questioned and was routinely followed by single Benches and Division Benches thereafter. This was so done also in Shri Prabhunath Singh v. State of Bihar, 1980 BBCJ (HC) 344. Indeed one of the learned Judges of the Division Bench, S. Narain, J., contented himself by observing that it was conceded by the learned advocate for the State that the case is covered by the ratio of the decision in S.A. Mannan v. State of Bihar (ILR (1958) Pat 302) (supra). My learned brother, N.P. Singh, J....