SHANKARRAO Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Maharashtra Agricultural Lands(Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961, (hereinafter referred to as 'the Ceiling Act of 1961') received the assent of the President of India on June 16, 1961. It came into force on January 26, 1962. This Act was amended by the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Lowering of Ceiling on Holdings) and (Amendment) Act, 1972, which came into force on September 19, 1975 as Maharashtra Act No. XXI of 1975 (hereinafter referred to as 'Act No. 21 of 1975'). This Act introduced two very important changes, like the definition of 'family unit' and requiring a landholder in this State to declare the agricultural land -holding in any other State or States in India for the purpose of clubbing together in order to determine the ceiling on holdings. The Ceiling Act of 1961 was further amended by the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Lowering of Ceiling on Holdings) and (Amendment) Act, 1975, which came into force on September 20, 1975 as Maharashtra Act No. XLVII of 1975 (hereinafter referred to as 'Act No. 47 of 1975'). It .added the concept of classification of land and further made some changes in Sections 4 and 6. Thereafter, two Ordinances were issued, being Ordinance No. XII of 1975 and Ordinance No. XIV of 1975. These Ordinances came into force on September 22, 1975 and October 2, 1975 respectively. These Ordinances were ultimately codified in Act No. VI of 1976. Two important changes were made in the Ceiling Act of 1961 by adding Section 40 -A and introducing the concept of 'commencement date' as being October 2, 1975.

(2.) WITH these amendments and the commencement date as declared, viz. October 2, 1975, a lower ceiling of land began to operate. This obliged the land -holders, who had land below the original larger ceiling but above the new proposed agricultural ceiling to file Returns within the specified time. In the cases of land -holders, who had already filed the Returns with the larger holdings, the basis of determining their limit and declaring the surplus was to continue, to the end under the old Act, and thereafter fresh Returns were to be filed within the specified time under the amended Act. This is so far as the lowering of the ceiling is concerned. As land in all other States in India was required to be included in the Returns for being clubbed together for the purpose of deciding the ceiling in Maharashtra, persons owning land in Maharashtra and some other States had to file Returns within the prescribed time. A large number of petitions were filed by persons owning properties in Maharashtra alone, because of the lowering of the ceiling, and some persons who owned lands in Maharashtra as well as in other States of India. Several challenges were raised in these petitions. The whole group of such petitions were heard together by a Division Bench of this Court, which decided all other challenges which were common to all the other petitions, but the Division Bench separated the cases of persons holding lands in Maharashtra as well as in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Even these petitioners had raised challenges to the new definition of family unit, and the lowering of limits. These challenges were heard and disposed of by a common judgment delivered in Special Civil Application No. 1394 of 1975, decided on August 13, 1976. That judgment was reported as Vithalrao Udhaorao v. The State of Maharashtra : AIR1977Bom99 . In para. 235 of the report the learned Judges observed : At this stage we direct the group of 30 cases (with the numbers being notified) should be separated, as the only question that survived in these 30 petitions related to the extra -territorial operation of the law.

(3.) SO far as these thirty matters are concerned, when they ' were being heard, the Division Bench of this Court found that by a judgment dated June 22, 1976 in Special Civil Application No. 49 of 1976 the challenge on the ground of extra -territoriality was rejected by the Division Bench at the main head quarters of the High Court at Bombay. Madanlal Roopchand v. State reported in I.L.R. (1979) Bom. 1401. The Division Bench hearing this group of matters at Nagpur found that they were unable to agree with the conclusion reached in the judgment delivered at Bombay. As a matter of fact, the two Judges differed in their conclusion. One Judge in express terms said that the Act seems to operate in .an extra -territorial manner, and .this is beyond the jurisdiction of Maharashtra State. He is unable to agree with the decision at Bombay. The second Judge has his own doubts, and so wonders whether it was extra -territorial in its operation. In this state of record, the proper course was to refer the matter to a third Judge, who would hear the parties to the extent necessary and then decide as per earlier judgment or agree with the judge who differs from the entire judgment. If he agrees with the differing judgment, the legal position that would develop would be that there would be two Division Bench decisions taking differing views. In the circumstances which course to adopt was a question raised before us whether the matter should be referred to a third Judge and await the decision, or should be heard by a larger Bench. As the point seems to be capable of holding differing views and being an important point, a larger Bench could do full justice to the matter. Taking an overall situation of the matters and the effect it will have in these thirty odd matters, we think the better course to adopt is to accept the Reference, and it should be answered by the Full Bench. We would make it clear at this stage that the appeal filed in Special Civil Application No. 1394 of 1975 to the Supreme Court was confined to other points, 'and the question of extra -territoriality of the operation of the Act was not the subject -matter of the earlier judgment. We are unable to agree with the written submissions of the learned Advocate General that the Supreme Court judgment reported in Dattatrayo Govind Mahajan v. The State of Maharashtra : [1977]2SCR790 , should be deemed to have upheld the constitutionality of Sections 3 and 4 with the consequences that the challenge to the extra -territorial operation is not open before us. That is a question which is specially reserved and never decided before. Having heard the learned Additional Government Pleader, we are satisfied that the question is still open to be decided by this Court.