NAVNEETHESWARASWAMI DEVASTHANAM Vs. STATE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, Sri Navneetheswaraswami Devasthanam in Tanjore District, Tamil Nadu is a religious trust of a public nature. It filed a writ petition praying for issue of a writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the notification made by the State of Madras in G. O. Ms. 2561-Revenue dated 1-9-1965 published in the Gazette dated 8-9-1965 notifying that the village of Sellur belonging to the appellant came under the provisions of the Madras Inam Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (Act 26 of 1963). The writ petition was originally heard along with a batch of other writ petitions raising similar question. But during the course of the argument of the petitions, as a special contention was sought to be raised by the appellant, the writ petition was separated from the batch and disposed of separately. The special contention raised by the appellant in a supplementary affidavit was that the appellant was in personal cultivation of the lands in question and as Act 26 of 1963 made no provision for compensation in accordance with the second proviso to Article 31-A (1), the notification was bad for that reason alone. The High Court dismissed the writ petition and this appeal, by certificate, is against that order.

(2.) There is no dispute that the appellant was the sole proprietor of the inam village in question and the inam lands were under the direct possession of the appellant. On 12-4-1962 the President gave assent to the Madras Public Trusts (Regulation of Administration of Agricultural Lands) Act (Madras Act .57 of 1961) and that was published in the Gazette on 21-4-1962

(3.) By two notifications dated 21-12-l963 and 29-3-1965, the State Government, in the exercise of its power under Section 52 of the Madras Act 57 of 1961, exempted the entire extent of the land from the operation of Section 6 of that Act which provides that where on the date of the commencement of that Act, any public trust personally cultivating land in excess of twenty standard acres and continuing to so cultivate that land on such date as may be specified in the notification issued by the Government in, that behalf, the trustee of the public trust shall, within such period as may be prescribed, from the date specified in such notification, lease out the lands in such excess to a co-operative farming society or the other persons specified therein. The effect of the two notifications was that the appellant was not obliged to lease out any part of the lands covered by the notifications and could personally cultivate the same.