RAJA JAGAVEERA RAMA MUTHUKUMARA VENKATE SWARA ETTAPPA NAICKER AYYAN AVERGAL ZAMINDAR OF ETTAYAPURAM TIRUNELVELL DISTRICT Vs. STATE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These consolidated appeals, numbering fourteen in all, are directed against a common judgment of a Division Bench of Madras High Court, dated 23-8-1952, by which the learned Judges dismissed the petitions of the different Appellants made under Art. 226 of the Constitution. The appellants are landholders of Madras, holding zemindaries within that State, and in their applications under Art. 226 of the Constitution they prayed for writs in the nature of mandamus, directing the State of Madras to forbear from notifying and taking of over possession of the estates held by them and also to cancel the notifications already issued, in exercise of its powers under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (Act 26 of 1948).

(2.) This Act, the constitutional validity of which has been assailed by the appellants, was passed by the Provisional Legislature of Madras functioning under the Government of India Act, 1935 and it received the assent of the Governor-General of India on 2-4-1949. The avowed object of the Act is to abolish the zemindary system by repealing the Madras Permanent Settlement Regulation of 1802, to acquire the rights of landholders in the permanently settled and other estates and to introduce the Ryotwari system in all such estates. After the advent of the Constitution, the Act was reserved for certification of the President and it was certified on 12-4-1950.

(3.) In the petitions presented by the appellants, a large number of grounds were put forward by way of attacking the validity of the legislation which was characterised as confiscators in its character and subversive of the Fundamental Rights of property, which the petitioners had in the zemindaries held by them under the Permanent Settlement Regulation.