MIR FAKIR MOHD Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The principal question that has been mooted before us in this petition for special leave to appeal under Art. 136 of the Constitution, against an appellate judgment dated 21st July, 1976 of the High Court at Calcutta is, whether a bamboo garden or banana plantation is an 'Orchard' within the meaning of S. 6 (1) (f) of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1954 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The material portion of S. 6 of the Act reads as under :

(2.) The petitioner claims himself to be an intermediary. The High Court has held (reversing the judgments of the courts below) that a cultivated bamboo garden would fall within the definition of 'Agricultural land' in S. 2 (b) of the Act and cannot in any view be called an 'orchard' within the purview of S. 6 (1) (f) of the Act. It further held that a banana plantation is not an 'orchard' because banana plants are not fruit-trees.

(3.) Mr. Purshottam Chatterjee, appearing for the petitioner contends that 'orchard' has not been defined in the Act, and we must, therefore, interpret the expression 'orchard' in its popular sense and not in the strict botanical sense, as the High Court has done. An 'orchard', it is argued, in the broad Dictionary sense, means a garden of fruit plants, or fruit trees, and a banana plant, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is a "fruit-tree."