SANKARSANA RAMANUJA DAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is the holder of a pre-settlement minor mam in Ganjam District and he has challenged the validity of Notification No. 4971-XV-2154-E. A, dated 15-7-1905 of the Government of Orissa issued under Section 3 (1) of the Orissa estate Abolition Act, 1951 (Orissa Act I of 1952) (hereinafter referred to as the act), vesting the said minor mam in the State of Orissa. The challenge is made on the ground that a pre-settlement minor inam does not come within the definition of the expression 'estate' as given in Section 2 (g) of the Act and that consequently the Government of Orissa have no jurisdiction to issue a Notification under Section 3 (1) of the Act in respect of this inam.

(2.) THE Act was introduced as a Bill in the Orissa Legislative Assembly on 17-11950 and was passed by the Assembly on 28-9-1951. The Governor of Orissa reserved it for the consideration of the President who gave his assent on 23-11952. Since then the Act has undergone several amendments, but the amendment with which we are primarily concerned in this writ application is the amendment made on 24-12-1954, by the Orissa Estate Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1954 (Orissa Act XVII, of 1954), by which the definition of the 'expression ''estate" in section 2 (g) of the Act was enlarged. The old definition of that expression, omitting immaterial portions, was as follows: ''2. (g) "estate" means any land held by an intermediary and included under one entry in any of the general registers of revenue-paying lands and revenue-free lands, prepared and maintained under the law for the time being in force by the Collector of a district, and includes revenue-free lands not entered in any register and all classes of tenures or under tenures, or an inam estate or part of an estate. . " By the said amendment of 1954 this definition was recast as follows:.

(3.) PRIOR to the amendment of 1954 the Act contained the expression "inam estate" and further stateed in Section 2 (q) that the expression will have the same meaning as in the Madras Estates Land Act. Hence there was justification for the view that pre-settlement minor inams were not "estates" as defined in the Act and that consequently they could not be notified under Section 3 (1) thereof. It was to include this class of inams that the amending Act of 1954 was passed, and the expression "any inam'' was substituted for the old expression "inam estate".