DHARMA REDDY Vs. SUB COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) One Muthyala Mogalaiah S/o Abbaiah was the owner of Ac. 2-20 guntas of land situated in Survey No. 1037 of Ranjal village, Nizamabad District. He acquired this land on assignment made by the District Revenue Officer of Nizamabad by his proceedings dated 6-3-1969. The Tahasildar, Bodhan in his proceedinss dated 10th of May, 1969 issued the Patta Certificate to the said Mogalaiah . The land was assigned to Mogalaiah on payment oi concessional market value of Rs. 140/- per acre but subject to certain conditions one of which is that the land should not be alienable. However, the said Mogalaiah sold the land to the present writ petitioner Dharma Reddy in the year 1970. The alienation of the aforementioned land by the said Mogalaiah in favour of Dharma Reddy was considered as being contrary to the above condition of the assignment relating to inalienability. Accordingly a notice was issued to the said' Dharma Reddy under the provisions of the A.P. Assigned Land (Prohibition of Transfers) Act of 1977 (Act 9 of 1977) calling upon him to show cause why the lands purchased by Dharma Reddy from Mogalaiah should not be resumed by the Government treating the sale by Mogalaiah as void. Dharma Reddy contended in substance that he had purchased these lands "from Mogalaiah for valuable consideration and that Mogalaiah himself had purchased those lands at concessional rate from the Government and that therefore, Act No. 9 of 1977 has no application. That argument was rejected by the authorities giving rise to the filing of this writ petition by Dharma Reddy. In this writ petition the only question is whether the above land sold by Mogalaiah to Dharma Feddy falls under the provisions of the A.P. Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977.

(2.) Before we examine that question fully, it may be noted that Mogalaiah was a farmer in Bodhan Taluk who lost his lands by reason of construction of a Government project. G.O.Ms. No. 1294, Revenue dated 6-6-1955 envisages compensating such a person by giving him lands at concessional rates in lieu of the project affected lands. That G.O. provides for sale of lands, no dcubt. at concessional rates to all those persons who are affected by construction of irrigation projects. G.O.Ms. No. 1294 envisages the collection of the market value in twenty annual instalments, together with interest thereof. Under that G.O., market value should be charged even from political sufferers. The Market Value of the lands would be determined by the Board of Revenue and the assignee of such lands would be liable to pay betterment contribution in addition to the market value. It is under the above mentioned G.O.Ms. No. 1294 Mogalaiah who had lost his lands by reason of the construction of a project got the present lands assigned to him. The question is whether A.P. Act 9 of 1977 is applicable to such lands.

(3.) The Act No. 9/77 has been examined by me in some detail in T. Onnuramma vs. Tahsildar, Khadiri (1). In that decision I held that the Act would be applicable to transactions of alienation that had taken place even prior to the commencement of the Act. That view has been approved by a Full Bench of this Court. The present question, however, is what category of assigned lands falls within the purview of Act No. 9 of 1977. The long title of Act 9 of 1977 refers to the policy of the Act as "To prohibit transfers of certain lands assigned to landless poor persons in the State of Andhra Pradesh". The word "assigned lands" is defined by is defined by Section 2 sub-section (1) to mean, lands assigned by the Government to the landless poor persons under the rules for the time being in force. A landless poor person is on? under that Act who owns an extent of land of not more than 2 1/2 acres of wet or 5 acres of dry. Section 3 of that Act prohibits transfer of assigned lands to a landless poor person for purposes of cultivation or as house sites. The above quoted parts of the Act clearly show that a land in order to be called an assigned land should have been assigned to a landless poor person for purposes of cultivation or for purpose of providing house site. The contemplation of the Act is that a person who does not own a house should be enabled to own at. least a house site and that a person who does not own a minimum extent of cultivable land should be enabled to own a certain extent of cultivable land. Act 9 of 15'/7. therfore, applies only to such persons called landless poor persons. That Act does not contemplate either the Government selling the land to the landless poor persons or the landless person paying the value of the land even at concessional rate. Those who cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread cannot be asked to eat a piece of cake. That Act, therefore, contemplates a free gift of the Government laud to a landless poor person G.O.Ms. No. 1294 Revenue dated 6-6-1955 under which Mogalaiah has been assigned the lands does not deal with the subject of assignment to landless persons at all. Under that G.O. any person whose lands are affected by the construction of a project would be eligible to be assigned alternate lands. But such an assignment, although called an assignment, is really in the nature of sale of the Government land at highly concessional rates. It is, therefore, clear the scheme and operation of G.O.Ms. No. 1294 under which the lands had been assigned in favour of Mogalaiah on payment of concessional market value is wholly different from the scheme of Act No. 9 of 1977. Although in both cases the lands are called assigned lands, I am of the opinion that the meaning and purport of those words is different in the two cases. The whole idea of Act No. 9 of 1977 is to make a free gift of the lands to the landless poor persons whereas the under G.O.Ms. No. 1294 collection of market value even at high concessional rates becomes unavoidable. The purpose of G. O. Ms. No. 1942 is to compensate the person who had suffered loss of his lands by reason of a project. The person coming under the G.O. Ms. No. 1294 is not a landless poor person within the meaning of Act No. 9 of 1977. It is clearly unthinkable for a landless poor person to pay the value of the land in instalments. Such a landless poor person will, therefore, be ineligible for the assignment under G.O.Ms. No. 1294, while the same person will be eligible to get the land assigned under Act 9 of 1977. The Sub-Collector's order clearly shows that G.O.Ms.No. 1294 is only to a person affected by construction of the project. For the above reasons, I am of the opinion that Act 9 of 1977 cannot be applied to the assignment of these lands made in favour of Mogalaiah nor to the sale of these lands by Mogalaiah to the writ petitioner. However, the Sub-Collector seems to say that the patta certificate has a condition containing a clause forbidding alienation. Sri Subhashan Reddy has argued that these general clauses on a printed form which is of multi-purpose applicability cannot be read to have application to a case like this. I am inclined to agree with the learned counsel. If Mogalaiah had not lost his land by reason of the project, he would have unfettered right to alienate his original lands. It must be held that his right, of alienation will attach itself to the lands given to him in lieu of the lost lands. It is significant that G.O.Ms. No. 1294 does not contemplate imposition of any such condition, of inalienability. For that reason, I am unable to agree with the reason of the learned Sub-Collector that the petitioner cannot alienate his land.