MADHUSUDAN SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) True to the spirit and letter of our Constitution and in fulfilment of the promises made by our national leaders to the people of India, the Government sought to introduce agrarian reforms so as to reserve the lands to the tillers of the soil giving marginal relief or compensation to the erstwhile landlords or tenants-in-chief, through various statutes passed by almost all the States in the country. In order to hasten and safeguard the agrarian reforms the Constitution takes full care by virtue of the insertion of the directive principles of State policy contained in Part IV, which are undoubtedly the heart and soul of our Constitution and have in fact been complied with in a variety of spheres. Ceaseless attempts made by the landlords to challenge the constitutional validity of the aforesaid reforms met with little success. Having failed in their attempts to undo the socialist reforms passed for the purpose of building an egalitarian society and bringing about marked improvement in the condition of the poor suffering tillers by the various Acts passed by the States, the landlords left no stone unturned and were always on the lookout for an opportunity to seize the lands from the tenants on one pretext or the other through manpower, muscle-power or money-power. Nevertheless, the constitutional validity of most of the Acts came up for decision in the High Courts and in this Court and by and large each one of them was held to be constitutionally valid, thus setting at naught the attempts of the landlords to take back possession of the lands which should have been given to the tillers of the soil long before. The landlords were thus unable to get hold of any opportunity to pounce upon the land which went and should have gone to the actual tillers of the soil.

(2.) Thereafter some of the bigger landlords tried through their dextrous methods and legal ingenuity to defeat the laudable social endeavour of the Government by making a show of the so-called complete destruction of their assets and properties reducing them to starvation. This case is yet another glaring illustration of such an adroit attempt made by the tenants-in-chief to deprive the actual tillers of the rights conferred on them by the Land Reforms Acts of West Bengal passed from 1953 to 1997. In view, however, of the modern trends of the decisions of this Court, which always made a practical and pragmatic approach to any progressive step taken by the Parliament, the attempts of the landlords ultimately proved to be a grotesque failure.

(3.) Coming now to the facts of the case, a brief history of the admirable object of the agrarian reforms introduced by the Government of West Bengal may be necessary as a prelude to our discussion on the subject. In fact, all the contentions raised before us stand concluded by a recent decision of this Court as we shall show hereafter. Not content with the addition of Art. 31C of the Constitution which was introduced by the Constitution (25th Amendment) Act, 1971, the petitioners chose to call into aid the decisions of this Court in Minerva Mills Ltd. v. Union of India (1981) 1 SCR 206 and Waman Rao v. Union of India (1981) 2 SCR 1, which also proved to be an exercise in futility because the ratio of these cases is in no way of any assistance to the petitioners.