STATE OF WEST BENGAL Vs. BELLA BANERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Calcutta declaring certain provisions of the West Bengal Land Development and Planning Act. 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the "impugned Act") unconstitutional and void.

(2.) The impugned Act was passed on October 1, 1948, primarily for the settlement of immigrants who had migrated into the Province of West Bengal due to communal disturbances in East Bengal, and it provides for the acquisition and development of land for public purposes including the purpose aforesaid. A registered Society called the West Bengal Settlement Kanungoe Co-operative Credit Society Ltd., Respondent No. 4 herein, was authorized to under-take a development scheme, and the Government of the State of West Bengal, the appellant herein, acquired and made over certain lands to the Society for purposes of the development scheme on payment of the estimated cost of the acquisition. On July 28, 1950, the Respondents 1 to 3, the owners of the lands thus acquired, instituted a suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, II Court at Alipore, District 24-Parganas, against the Society for a declaration that the impugned Act was void as contravening the Constitution and that all proceedings taken thereunder for the acquisition aforesaid were also void and of no effect and for other consequential reliefs. The State of West Bengal was subsequently impleaded as a defendant. As the suit involved questions of interpretation of the Constitution, Respondents 1 to 3 also moved the High Court under Art. 228 of the Constitution to withdraw the suit and determine the constitutional question. The suit was accordingly transferred to the High Court and the matter was heard by a Division Bench (Trevor Harries C. J. and Benerjee J.) who by their final judgment held that the impugned Act as a whole was not unconstitutional or void save as regards two of the provisions contained in S. 8 which, so far as it is material here, runs as follows:

(3.) The Attorney-General, appearing for the appellant, rightly conceded that inasmuch as Art. 31(2) made the existence of a public purpose a necessary condition of acquisition, the existence of such a purpose as a fact must be established objectively, and the provision in S. 8 relating to the conclusiveness of the declaration of Government as to the nature of the purpose of the acquisition must be held unconstitutional but he contended that the provisions was saved by Art. 31 (5) of the Constitution which provides:"Nothing in clause (2) shall affect-(a) the provisions of any existing law other than a law to which the provisions of Cl. (6) apply, or ....... ." Clause (6) reads thus: