KALPI DEVI Vs. CONSOLIDATION COMMISSIONER AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A learned Single Judge by judgment and order dated 4 February 2016 has dismissed a writ petition preferred by the appellant laying challenge to a notification dated 9 September 2013 under Sec. 6 of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953. The notification dated 9 September 2013 brought to an end consolidation operations which had commenced in the unit in question pursuant to a notification issued under Sec. 4 of the Act on 6 November 1982. The writ petition itself has come to be dismissed by the learned Single Judge following the law laid down by two Division Benches of this Court and following them a judgment rendered by a learned Single Judge on a batch of writ petitions which had held that the issuance of a notification under Sec. 6 of the Act was an exercise of conditional legislative powers and which therefore, did not warrant interference or the issuance of any prerogative writ by the Court in exercise of its powers conferred by Article 226 of the Constitution. It is this view taken by the learned Single Judge which is sought to be questioned before us in appeal.

(2.) At the very outset it may be noted that the learned Counsel for the appellant does not question the principles of law as enunciated by the two Division Benches in Agricultural and Industrial Syndicate Limited v/s. State of U.P., 1976 RD 35 and Dalip Singh & 3 others v/s. Vikram Singh & 6 others. Sec. 6 embodies a conditional power of legislation upon the State Government or its delegate to bring the curtain down on consolidation operations which may have been commenced in the unit upon it being found that the continuance thereof would not be expedient in the public interest. The consolidation operations themselves are undertaken in a situation where the State Government forms the opinion that fragmented agricultural plots in a unit need to be consolidated in order to create homogeneous and larger holdings with a view to augment agricultural operations. Interference with the notification issued under Sec. 6 would clearly amount to this Court commanding the State Government to extend and implement a scheme of consolidation in an area even though in its opinion such a scheme can no longer or should not be enforced. The Division Bench in Agricultural and Industrial Syndicate Limited dealt with this aspect in the following terms:

(3.) This Court obviously cannot issue a writ which would make it obligatory upon the State Government to enforce a scheme of consolidation in an area where in its opinion such a scheme should not or cannot be enforced. It would amount to compelling the State Government to exercise its power of conditional legislation. The law as declared by the Division Bench in Agricultural and Industrial Syndicate Limited has been consistently followed by this Court and stood reiterated in the recent pronouncement of the Court in Dalip Singh. We therefore find no ground which would warrant interference with the view taken by the learned Single Judge especially when the same was itself founded on what had been consistently held by the Division Benches of this Court.