MAHARANA SHRI JAYVANTSINGHJI RANMALSINGHJI ETC. versus THE STATE OF GUJRAT

Citation: [1962] SUPP. 2 S.C.R. 411 · Decided: 22-12-1961 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: BHUVNESHWAR PRASAD SINHA · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

2 S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
411 
for attendance of the company "in person", but 
apart from that we wish to point out that the 
resolution made by the two companies do 
not 
appear to us to delegate the powers of the directors 
to Arjun Prasad. 
The conclusion of the High Court that the 
votes cast by Arjun Prasad on behalf of the two 
companies., 
viz., Bhandani 
Brothers and the 
Hindustan Coal Company, were not valid votes is, 
in our opinion, correct. 
The appeals are accordingly dismis~ed with 
costs. One set of hearing fee. 
Appeals d;ismisse,d. 
MAHARANA SHRI JAYVANTSINGHJI 
RANMALSINGHJI 
ETC. 
v. 
THE STATE OF GUJRAT 
(B. P. SINHA, c. J., s. K. DAS, A. K. SARKAR, 
N. RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR and 
J. R. MUDHOLKAR, JJ.) 
Land Tenure, Abolition of-Amendment of enactment-If 
creates a new cla.!s of permanenl. tenanl8-0onslitutional 
validity-If infringes fundamental rights of erstwhile tenure· 
holdera--Bombay Land Tenure Abol-ition Laws (Amendment) 
Act, 1958 (Bom. LYII of 1958), ss. 3, 4, 6-0on•titution of 
India, Arts. U, 19 (1)(/), 31, 31-A. 
The petitioners, who were tenure-holders, challenged 
the constitutional validity of the Bombay Land Tenure Aboli-
tion Laws (Amendment) Act, 1958 and in.particular ss. 3 and 
4 read withs. 6 of that Act, as infringing their fundamental 
rights guaranteed by Arts. 14, 19 and 31 of the Constitution. 
Their case in brief was that those provisions by making certain 
non-permanent tenants permanent as from the commencement 
of the Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition Act, 1949, 
enabled them to acquire occupancy right by payment of six 
times the assessment or the rent under s. 5A of that Act 
instead of 20 timea to 200 times the as>essment under s. 32H 
of ~e Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, 
1951 
.4rjun Prarad 
v. 
Sha•lital SiuJllkarl•I 
Shah 
1961 
Denmber 32. 
IHI 
Mo},o,ana 8/ari 
J oywntJ iltglej i 
R.-lriogJiii etc. 
v. 
T"' Slot. of Gufrat 
412 SUPREME COU.KT REPORTS [1962] St:Pl'. 
a' amended in 
1956, and thereby substantially deprived the 
petitioners of the rifhts acquired by them on the 'tillers' day, 
April 1, 1957, when they ceased to be tenur<-holders. It was 
urged that the 
impugned Act was a piece of colourable legis-
lation in that it had confiscated, under the guise of defining a 
permanent tenant or changing a rule of evidence, a large part 
of rhc purchase price 
the 
pl"'tit10 tt>rs were cnti1lcd to from 
their tenants, and 
that the 
Stat : Legislature had not the 
competence to enact it as it was not saved by Art. 31A of the 
C orutitution. 
Held, (Sarkar and 
Mudholkar, JJ., dissenting), 
that 
ss. 3, 4 and 6 of the Bombay Land Tenure Abolition Laws 
(Amendment) Act, 1958, in 
so 
far as they 
deemed some 
tenants as permanent tenants in possession of Taluqudari land, 
were unconstitutional 
and void. 
Under the guise of chang-
ing the definition of a permanent trnant and changing a rule 
of evidence, they really reduced the purchase price that the 
petitioners "'·ere 
entitled 
to receive under s. 32H of the 
Bombay Tenancy 
and Agriculrural 
L•n<ls Act, 1948, as 
amended in 1956, from some of their tenants on the "tillers' 
day." 
Per Sinha, C. J., and Das, J .-There can be no doubt 
that s. 4 of the impugned Act, properly construed, created a 
new class of permanent 
tenants not contemplated by s. 83 of 
the Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879, and not in existence 
on the "tillers' day", and the combined effect of ss. 3, 4 and 6 
of the impugned Act was that 
if the tenµre holder did not 
m•ke an appli:ation under s. 6 w,thin six months from the 
commencement of the impugned Act for a declaration that a 
tenant under him waJ not a permanent tenant, the name of 
the tenant would be 
recorded as a permanent tenant if he 
fulfilled the conditions lai<l down by s. 4 and thereafter he 
would be dremed under s. 3 to be a permanent tenant and 
under s. 4 all the provisions of the Taluqd;,ri Abolition Act 
1949, would apply to him. The result of this combined effect 
would be to deprive the tenure-holder of any real opportunity 
of contesting the claims of the tenant and deprive him of 
the purchase prfce prescribed bys. 32H of the Bombay, 
Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. 
The right of the petitioners to the said purchase pr;ce from 
those of their tenants who were non-permanent on April J, 
1957, was a right ofpropertf guaranteed by Art. 19 (I) (f) 
and the impugned sections adversely afl'cctrd that right with 
retrospe<:tive effe

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