OUSEPH MARTHA Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition to quash the proceedings which were taken under the Cochin Land Acquisition Act II of 1070, which may be referred to hereafter as the Cochin Act. The property of the petitioner was acquired by Government under the Cochin Act, for providing accommodation for Government servants. The chief question which arises for determination is, whether the Cochin Act, or any of its provisions relating to acquisition of property, stands repealed, by the passing of the Travancore-Cochin Requisitioning and Acquisition of Property Act, 1955, which may be referred to hereafter as Act I of 1956. In express terms, by S.24 (1), Act I of 1956 purported to repeal only the provisions of the Travancore-Cochin Public Safety Measures Act, 1950 (Act V of 1950) in so far as they relate to any matter for which provision has been made in Act I of 1956; but the contention was, that there has been an implied repeal of the Cochin Act, or its material provisions.

(2.) The presumption is against such repeal by implication for, as pointed out by Crawford in his book on Statutory Construction, Courts will seek to avoid a construction which leads to an inference of repeal by implication, by resorting to any reasonable construction or hypothesis. The court will as far as possible, see by any fair interpretation, that the two statutes or provisions stand together. I therefore take it, that an interpretation in favour of repeal is not to be adopted, unless it is inevitable to do so. When there are two statutes upon the same subject, the attempt must be to see, whether effect cannot be given to both of them. The attempt can fail only if the repugnancy or inconsistency between them is so pronounced, that they can never stand together. The principle underlying this has been stated thus, in Maxwell on The Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edition, page 170:-

(3.) The Cochin Act provides for the acquisition of any property but Act I of 1956 provides for the requisitioning of property, and in certain cases, for the acquisition of requisitioned property. Requisitioning and acquisition are different concepts in law, requisitioning implying only a temporary deprivation of the owner, of the use and possession of a property, acquisition implying a transference of the property, or all the rights thereto. In Chiranjit Lal Chowdhuri v. The Union of India and Others, 1950 SCR 863 , the court held, that in requisitioning, the title remains with the owner, but he is excluded by the State from the right to the possession or enjoyment of the property, but acquisition was defined as the acquiring of the entire title of the expropriated owner whatever the nature or extent of that title may be. It is expedient, that Government must have a power of requisitioning, as distinguished from a power of acquisition of property. During the period of the war, Government derived this power under the Defence of India Act, 1939, and the Rules thereunder. That Act which expired on the 31st March, 1952, was superseded by the Central Act, Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, Act 30 of 1952 which made provisions for requisitioning and acquisition of immovable property for Union purposes. Some of the States passed similar enactments for non Union purposes. In the Madras State, Act 42 of 1956 was passed for the requisitioning and acquisition of immovable property for State purposes, and in the former Travancore-Cochin State too, where was an enactment in force called The Travancore-Cochin Public Safety Measures Act, 1950, which provided for requisitioning of property in certain circumstances. The object of these enactments, both Central and State, was to clothe the Governments concerned, with the power of requisitioning property in case of need & also with the power, which, in circumstances, specified, may well be construed to be a duty or a liability, to acquire such property. Thus, acquisition under Act I of 1956 is limited only to the property requisitioned and can be made, only on the fulfilment of certain conditions. This is not the object of statutes like the Cochin Act relating to the acquisition of land, under which any land may be acquired, without the need for requisitioning. The objects of the two Acts are thus different, as also their respective fields of operation.