NATHUBHAI GANDABHAI DESAI Vs. STATE OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY these various petitions the petitioners challenge orders made by Government under Section 65 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, assuming management of their respective lands. The substantial facts in most of these petitions are identical and perhaps it would be sufficient if we deal with the facts of one petition, and if there are any differentiating facts in the other petitions draw attention to those facts. We will deal with petition No. 1184 of 1954.

(2.) NOW , in that case a notice was given by the Mamlatdar to the petitioner on August 18, 1953, and by that notice the petitioner was ordered to arrange to cultivate either personally or by tenant the lands belonging to him and a fortnight's time was given. The petitioner owns 100 acres and 24 gunthas in the village Sonwada, Taluka Pardi, District Surat. As the petitioner did not comply with this notice, an order was passed on June 10, 1954, and this order contains a recital that inasmuch as the lands of the petitioner in village Sonwada had been kept fallow for more than two consecutive years, and whereas notice was duly served upon him on August 18, 1953, and whereas he had failed to get the aforesaid lands cultivated personally or through tenants during the current cultivation season, the Prant officer in exercise of the powers delegated to him by Government Notification dated October 31, 1949, in pursuance of Section 65 of the Tenancy Act, declared that the management of the land described below was assumed by Government, and the Mamlatdar was appointed the manager of the land, and the area of the land which is the subject matter of this declaration is about 10 acres. It is this order which is being challenged by the petitioner.

(3.) NOW , the first question that we have to consider is : What did the Legislature actually intend when it used the expression 'any land has remained uncultivated,' and for that purpose we must turn to Section 2 which is the definition section. In that section 'to cultivate' has been defined as 'to carry on any agricultural operation, 'and' agriculture' has been defined as including Horticulture, the raising of crops grass or garden produce, dairy farming, poultry farming, stock breeding and grazing, but does not include cutting of wood only. Briefly, the contention of the State of Bombay is that the lands which have been the subject matter of the declaration are grass lands in which grass grows, but grass grows spontaneously, grass is a natural crop and no human agency or human Industry or effort is required for the purpose of growing grass. On the other hand, the contention of the petitioners is that the grass that they grow requires the sowing of seeds, it requires the process of weeding, and at least in one case it has been suggested that there is actually a well out of which water has to be supplied in order to enable the grass to grow. Now, these are divergent versions of what actually is being done on the lands of the petitioners. As we have pointed out, it is for the Government to be satisfied as to what is actually being done on these lands. It is for the Government to decide whether the land is uncultivated as provided by the statute. Realising this difficulty the petitioners have argued these petitions on the basis that the version given by the Government as to what is being done on these lands is the correct version, and even so it is urged by the petitioners that the result of the growing of this grass on the lands is agriculture and the petitioners are cultivating their lands within the meaning of that definition in Section 2.