AIYAM PERUMAL PILLAI Vs. CHIEF SECRETARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are petitions filed by two persons for the issue of the high writ of certiorari to quash certain proceedings taken by Government under the Public Safety Measures Ordinance, Ordinance No. 5 of 1125. Sirkar to whom notice was issued on both petitions has filed an affidavit explaining the circumstances under which the proceedings were taken. The facts are as follows:

(2.) The petitioner in OP No. 2 is the person in possession of 70 cents of poramboke land which is said to be comprised in S. No. 10258 in the Colachel Pakuthy. The petitioner in O.P. No. 3 is the person in possession of 34 cents of poramboke land in the same survey number. Both have been served with notices to surrender the land as the same have been ordered to be requisitioned by Government under the Ordinance above mentioned. It would appear from the Government order and also from an affidavit filed in this Court that the requisitions were made in furtherance of a housing scheme for the homeless and destitute in the coastal areas involving an outlay of two lakhs of rupees. In the Government's opinion these lands are required for purposes specified in S.19 of the Ordinance, namely, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community. The order is impeached on the ground that the opinion was not based on proper grounds and secondly that there was nothing to indicate that Government in pursuance to that opinion had passed the order of requisition.

(3.) The learned Counsel for the petitioners relied on P. V. Rao v. Khushaldas (AIR 1949 Bom. 277) where a requisition order was sought to be averted. It was held that the decision was judicial or quasi judicial in nature and liable to be called in question and quashed or corrected under prerogative writs in the nature of certiorari. The Counsel for the petitioners contended that the provisions of S.19 of the Ordinance in question are similar to the provisions of the Bombay Land Requisitioning Ordinance under discussion in the above case. This is not correct, for we find that whereas the Bombay Ordinance provides for the requisition of land for "a public purpose if it is necessary or expedient to do so" and on the fact it was found that a public purpose was not intended to be served, the Ordinance in question is differently worded and the purpose is admittedly a public purpose. We think that the question is not very material in this case an in our view the opinion of Government does not appear to be open to any objection on the merits as there is no purpose so essential for the life of a community as a housing scheme for the homeless. The learned Chief Justice who dealt with the difference in the phraseology between the Ordinance under which the certiorari proceedings were started and a subsequent enactment of the same kind pointed out as follows: