TDATTAM BHAT Vs. STATE OF MYSORE AND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner before us is an Inamdar of Kuppagadde Village, Sorab Taluk in Shimoga District. In this petition ho is challenging the validity of the Mysore Inams Abolition Act, 1954 and also of the Notification made thereunder by the Government of Mysore, dated 20-9-1956. By the said Notification the provisions of the Act were made applicable in respect of certain Surveys and Settled Inam Villages, in the Districts of Bangalore and Shimoga, as specified in the said Notification.

(2.) The impugned Act came into force on 15-3-1955. It was an Act, as the preamble of it shows, to provide for the abolition of personal inams and certain miscellaneous inams in the (Mysore Area) except Bellary District. Sub-section (4) of Section 1 of the said Act provided that except Sections 2, 27, Section 8 and 40, the rest of the said Act shall come into force in respect of any inam village or minor inam in an unalienated village, on such date as the Government by Notification appoint. By virtue of this provision the Government of Mysore issued on 20-9-1956 a Notification whereby it appointed 2-10-1956 as the date on which the rest of said Act would come into force in respect of Surveys and Settled Inam Villages as specified thereunder of Bangalore and Shimoga Districts. The petitioner before us challenges the validity of this Act and also of the said Notification issued by virtue of the powers conferred by Sub-section (4) of Section 1 of the said Act.

(3.) The first ground urged before us -by the learned Advocate for the petitioner was that by the said Notification the Government of Mysore has made a discrimination between inamdars holding surveyed and settled villages and those holding unsettled villages. This distinction, according to the learned Advocate for the petitioner, was based upon no intelligible differentia nor does it bear any rational or substantial relationship to the object of the Act. He contended that both settled inam villages and unsettled inam villages possess common characteristics, e.g., the source of the grant is the same, i.e., the State, and liability to the Government is also the same. That being so, it was contended before us that the said Notification contravened the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution and should be declared void.