CHINTAMANI GAJANAN VELKAR versus STATE OF MAHARASHTRA & ORS.

Citation: [2000] 1 S.C.R. 570 · Decided: 01-02-2000 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: M. JAGANNADHA RAO, AJAY PRAKASH MISRA

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
CHINTAMANI GAJANAN VELKAR 
.. -
v. 
STATE OF MAHARASHTRA & ORS. 
c 
FEBRUARY 1, 2000 
B 
[M, JAGANNADHA RAO AND A.P. MISRA, JJ.) 
Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975 : Sections 2(/) 6 
and 24(1). 
c 
Indian Forest Act, 1927: Section 35(3). 
Land-Holder--l'rivate forests land-Vesting of in State-Act come into 
force on 30.8.1975--Notice issued to landowner before appointed day-Effect 
of-Word 'issue' used in Section 2(f)--Whether means service of notice on 
the land holde~ifference between Section 2(f) (ii) and (iii) dis-
D cussed-Held, in cases where a fmal notification has been issued under 
Section 35(1) the entire notified land would automatically vest in the State 
on the appointed date, namely, 30.8 .. 197~ut in the case where only notice 
has been issued as per Section 35(3) before the appointed day, namely, 
30.8.1975-The Maharashtra Legislature thought that the entire property 
E 
covered by the notice in the State need not vest but it excluded 2 hectares out 
of the forest land held by the land holde~171at was the consideration for not 
allowing the benefit of an enquiry under Section 35(3) and for not allowing 
notification to be issued under section 35(i) of the 1927 Act. 
Banarasi Debi v. lncome Tax Officer, District IV, Calcutta & Ors., AIR 
F (1964) SC 1742 and Commissioner of Wealth Tax, U.P. and Anr. v. Kundan 
Lal Behari Lal, [1975] 4 SCC 844, held inapplicable. 
Commissioner of Income Tax~ ... Bababhai Pitambardas (HUF), [1993] 
Suppl. 3 SCC 530, relied on. 
G 
Words and Phrases: 
Word 'issue'-!'fleaning of-Section 2(f) of the Maharashtra Private 
""" 
Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975. 
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 781 of 
H 2000. 
570 
C.G. VELKAR v. STATE 
571 
From the Judgment and Order dated 11.12.97 of the Bombay High A 
Court in L.P.A. No. 199 of 1997 in W.P. No. 4779 of 1996. 
Rajiv Dutta, Manoj Kr. Singh and Uday Kumar for the appellant. 
V.A. Mohta, S.S. Shinde, G.B. Sathe, D.M. Nargolkar and S.V. 
Deshpande for the Respondents. 
B 
The following Order of the Court was delivered : 
Leave granted. 
Heard learned counsel on both sides. 
In this appeal, a limited notice was issued at the time of admission 
on 29.7.1998. 
c 
The appellant before us is the land holder. He was in possession of 
various extents of lands. Now we are concerned only with Survey Nos. 31, D 
32 and 33 in the village Versave in District Thane comprising various 
extents of lands in all roughly amounting to 20 hectares. The appellant filed 
an application under Section 6 of the Maharashtra Private Fon:sts (Ac-
quisition) Act, 1975 which provides for settlement of disputes in relation 
to private forest land. Section 6 reads as under : 
"Section 6 : Where any question arises as to whether or not any 
forest is a private forest, or whether or not any private forest or 
portion thereof has vested in the State Government or whether or 
not any dwelling house constructed in a forest stands acquin:d 
under this act, the Collector shall decide the question, and the 
decision of the Collector shall, subject to the decision of the 
'Tribunal in appeal which may be preferred to the Tribunal within 
60 days from the date of the decision of the Collector, or the order 
of the State Government under Section 18, be final." 
E 
F 
Initially the Deputy Collector passed an order on 25.9.80 in favour G 
of the appellant holding that the land was water-logged and could not be 
treated as forest land and he also held that the land did not vest in the 
State of Maharashtra on 30.8.1975 when the Maharashtra Act, 1975 came 
into force inasmuch as notice was issued under Section 35(3) of the Indian 
Forest Act 1927 on 29.8.1975 and was not served on the landholder before 
30.8.1975 but was served only thereafter on 12.9.1975. ln other words, the H 
572 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[2000 J 1 S.C.R. 
A Deputy Collector held that for the purpose of the definition of "Private 
forest" under Section 2(t) of Maharashtra 1975 Act, it was necessary that 
notice be not only issued under Section 35(3) of the Indian Forest Act 1927, 
but should have also been served on the land holder before the commen-
cement of Maharashtra Act on 30.8.1975. He, therefore, held that the 
private forest land of the appellant did not vest in the State under the 1975 
B Act on 30.8.75. 
On appeal by the State, the Revenm: Tribunal Maharashtra, reversed 
this view of the Dy. Collector dated 25.9.1980 and held that inasmuch as 
notice was issu

Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.