RENUKA SINGH Vs. REVENUE OFFICER SETTLEMENT B CAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals are directed against the judgment and order of our learned brother M. N. Roy, J. discharge two civil rules obtained by the respective appellants in the under section 14T of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act.

(2.) The Revenue Officer concerned had initiated the said case no.8 under section 14T of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act for determining the extent of the land of Panchanan Singh, the applicant in F.M.A.T. No. 807 of 1982 and the extent of land, which was to be vested in the State out of his khas lands. Pursuant to the notice served upon him, Panchanan had appeared before the Revenue Officer and filed a statement of agricultural lands by him. The Revenue Officer considered the said schedule to the incomplete as Panchanan had not included the lands, which recorded in the names of his two unmarried daughters. Under the direction of the Revenue Officer, Panchanan Singh also filed statement of agricultural lands held by his two daughters, Minati Singh and Renuka Singh. He also purported to include married son Sailendra and one minor son as member of his family on the ground that they only owned homestead land at Goari, P.S. Krishnanagar, Dist: Nadia. The Revenue Officer refused to include Panchnan's elder son Sailendra as a member of Panchanan's family for the purpose of calculating the ceiling area, which was Panchanan's entitled to retain. The Revenue Officer held that Panchanan family should be deemed to consist of six members including two daughters mentioned above. Thereafter, he allowed Panchanan to retain 19.03 acres of agricultural land in non-irrigated and vested rest of the lands including the lands which stood recorded in the names of the two daughters who are appellants before us in F.M.A. No. 315 of 1983, on the ground that the said land had not been retained.

(3.) In our view, the learned trial judge rightly declined to allow writ petitioners to challenge the validity of the provision of Ch. IIB of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act inserting Ch. IIB have been included in the Ninth Schedule to the constitution of India and therefore, the said Act and the Amending Act stand validated under Article 31B of the Constitution of India. The Supreme court in the case of Sasanka Sekher Maity and other v. Union of India and others AIR 1981 S.C. 522 and also in the case of Sri. Kalimata Thakurani and Raghunath Jew and others. Union of India and others A.I.R. 1981 S.C. 1030, has already upheld as intra virus the provisions of Ch. IIB of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act. Mr. Harinarayan Mukherjee, appearing on behalf of the appellants, had tried to urge that the definition in section 14K(C) of the West Bengal Land reforms Act makes an unreasonable differentiation in treatment between unmarried daughters and unmarried adult sons of a raiyat. An unmarried daughter irrespective of the fact whether she holds any land as a raiyat is to be considered as a member of the family of a raiyat whereas the raiyat's unmarried adult son who does not hold any land as a raiyat, shall be deemed to be a member of the raiyat's family. We can only observe that in view of facts already recorded, the appellants are precluded from challenging the constitutional validity of the definition of 'family' given in section 14K(c) of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act.