MEHRUNNISSWA BEGUM Vs. GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Because of a common ground urged by all the parties for impeaching the provisions of the Madras Land Encroachment Act. 1905 all the writ petitions and Writ Appeal have been set done together for hearing. The statute and more particularly Section 6 and 7 are called in question as being violate of concept of equality underlying Article 14 of the Constitution.

(2.) It is not necessary to set out the facts that have given rise to the several writ petitions because the argument has been confined to the preliminary question of the constitutional validity of the Act.

(3.) Stated in bare outline, the contention is that the Madras Land Encroachment Act (the provisions of which are made applicable to the Telangana region too) provides a remedy of Government within the meaning of the Act and that within the meaning of the Act, and that this remedy is more drastic and prejudicial to the party concerned than the common law process in a court of law and that the choice of the remedies is left to the arbitrary and unguided discretion of the Collector or Tahsildar. The provisions of the Act leave it to the sweet will or pleasure of the officers concerned to use or not to use the harsh and drastic process under the impugned Act by picking out some persons or properties accorded that discrimination inevitably arises inasmuch as there are two available procedures, one more drastic or prejudicial to the party concerned than the other and there is no guiding principles enacted by the law which enables discriminatory selection among persons similarly situated; the choice of remedy is dependent t solely on the arbitrary will of the authority.