ATMARAM SUKHDEORAO PATIL Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS said by Krishna Iyer J. in Dattatraya Govind Mahajan vs. State of Maharashtra : AIR 1977 SC 915, legal challenges to the constitutionality of agrarian transformation die hard in our divided society. The present appeal and several other similar appeals and writ petitions pending in this Court, in which certain provisions of the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961 (hereinafter called as the Principal Act), as it stood amended upto the end of 1975, (called herein as Amended Ceiling Act), are challenged as violative of Article 300A of the Constitution, bring home this observation. In order to understand the controversy raised now it will be convenient at this stage to take a quick survey of the legislative and judicial history of this piece of legislation.

(2.) THE Principal Act which came into force on 26 -1 -1962, imposed ceiling on agricultural holdings in this State and provided for acquisition of land held in excess of the ceiling and for distribution of land so acquired. Maharashtra Act 21 of 1975 effected radical and drastic amendments in the Principal Act by lowering the ceiling and by introducing the concept of artificial family unit for the purpose of determining the extent of ceiling area. Maharashtra Acts 47 of 1975 and 2 of 1976 carried out some more amendments in the Principal Act with which we are not concerned in these appeals. The Principal Act and the Amending Acts have been included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution by the Seventeenth, Thirty -ninth and Fortieth Constitution Amendment Acts, thus immunising these Acts from challenges on the ground of violation of Articles 14, 19 and 31 of the Constitution.

(3.) IN the appeals preferred to the Supreme Court against this decision of this Court, the only question which was canvassed before that Court was as to whether the Amended Ceiling Act in so far as it created an artificial concept of family unit is in conflict with the second proviso to clause (1) of Article 31A and if so, whether it is protected under Article 31B. The Supreme Court by its judgment in Dattatraya Govind v. State of Maharashtra (supra) answered both these questions against the appellants and rejected the appeals and special leave petitions pending before it.