KISHIP SINGH OTHERS Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications under Art. 32 of the Constitution by certain jagirdars of Marwar, challenging the constitutionality of Ss. 81 to 86, Marwar Land Revenue Act 40 of 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) on the ground that they infringe the fundamental rights of the petitioners under Article 14, Article 19 (1) (f) and Article 31 (2) of the Constitution. These sections provide for fixing fair and equitable rent payable by the tenants and prescribe the procedure to be followed therefor. Section 81 of the Act provides that when any local area has been brought under settlement operations by a notification under S. 64, the Settlement Officer or an Assistant Settlement Officer shall inspect every village in the local area, divide it into soil-classes and assessment circles, select rent-rates for the area and publish them in such manner as may be prescribed. If objections to these proposals are received, he has to consider them, and submit his report to the Board of Revenue. The Board has the power to sanction the proposals with or without any modifications, and it has also the power to direct further enquiry into the matters. With a view to arriving at fair and equitable rates, the Settlement Officer is required under S. 82 to have regard to the collection of rent and cesses in the nature of rent during the ten years preceding the settlement excluding such years as the Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare to be abnormal, the average of the prices of agricultural produce during the same period, the nature of the crops grown and the quantity of the produce and their value. Section 82 (2) provides that the rent rates shall not exceed one-third of the value of the produce of unirrigated lands and one-fourth of the value of the produce of irrigated lands. Under S. 84, the Settlement Officer shall determine rents weather by way of abatement, enhancement or commutation payable for all holdings in the occupation of tenants on the basis of the rates sanctioned by the Board of Revenue. S. 86 enacts that any rent, fixed by order of the Settlement Officer shall be payable from the first day of July next following the date of such order, "unless the Settlement Officer thinks fit for any reasons to direct that it shall be payable from some earlier date".

(2.) Acting under S. 81 of the Act, the Settlement Officer formulated certain proposals with reference to the rent rates in the villages comprised in the jagirs of the petitioners, and they were published in the Gazette on 12-12 1953. Objections to those rates were filed by the petitioners on 12.1.1954. On 13-10-1954 the Additional Settlement Commissioner submitted his final proposals to the Settlement Officer, who forwarded the same to the Board of Revenue for sanction. After making further enquiry, the Board passed an order on 4-12-1954 determining the rent rates payable. Subsequent to this, an order was also passed under S. 86 of the Act bringing the sanctioned rate into operation from 1-7-1954. This order is not itself the subject of attack in these proceedings, and it cannot be, seeing that Petn. No. 621of 1954 was filed on 24-11-1954 before that order was passed, and Petns. Nos. 655 and 678 of 1954 merely repeat 'verbatim' the allegations in Petn. No. 621 of 1954. Before us, the petitioners conceded that they were not impugning the correctness of the order passed under S:86 in so far as it gave operation to the rates of rent from 1st July, on its merits, but that they were attacking the section as bad only as a step in establishing that the scheme of the Act, of which S. 86 is an integral part is, taken as a whole, an infringement of their fundamental rights under Arts. 14, 19 and 31 (2) We have now to consider whether-Ss. 81 to 86 of the Act are bad as infringing the above provisions of the Constitution.

(3.) The contention that Ss. 81 to 86 of the Act are void as being repugnant to Art. 14 is sought to be made out on two grounds. It is stated firstly that the Act applies only to what was prior to its merger the State of Marwar, that the present State of Rajasthan comprises Marwar and 17 other States which have merged in it, and that as the Act; as it stands is directed against the jagirdars in one area of the state and not the whole of it, it has become discriminatory any void. This contention is clearly untenable. What Art. 14 prohibits is the unequal treatment of persons similarly situated, and therefore before the petitioners can claim the protection of that Article, it is incumbent on them to establish that the conditions which prevail in other areas in the State of Rajasthan are similar to those which obtain in Marwar. But of this, there has been neither allegation nor proof. On the contrary, it is stated by the respondents in para 10 of their statement that the tenants in the jagirs of Marwar were paying much more by way of rent and cesses than those in the Khalsa area of the State, that with a view to remove the inequality between the two classes of tenants within the State, a law was passed in 1943 providing for settlement of rent, and that again on 10-1-1947 another law was passed abolishing all cesses (lags) and fixing the maximum share of rent payable in kind. These special features, it is argued, form sufficient justification for a separate legislation for this area. It is also stated that the other States had their often rent laws suited to their conditions. There are no materials on which we could hold that the impugned Act is discriminatory in character, and we cannot strike it down merely on the ground that it does not apply to the whole of the State of Rajasthan.