RAM KISHAN Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these two Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 3172 and 3362 of 1982, the twin question raised relates to the vires of Section 8 (2) of the Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 (for short, the Act) and the validity of the two notifications issued by the State Government in exercise of powers under that provision.

(2.) SO far as the first part of the question, i. e. , with regard to the vires of Section 8 (2) of the Act is concerned, I had the occasion to directly deal with the same in Civil Writ Petn. No. 4961 of 1981 (Avinash Chander v. State of Haryana decided on August 23, 1982 (Reported in AIR 1983 NOC 118) and I upheld the vires of the same. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, however, point out that while expressing opinion in this regard in that case, I had placed primary reliance on the observations of a Full Bench of this Court in Ramji Lal Ram Lal v. State of Punjab, AIR 1966 Punj 374, and according to them, their Lordships of the Full Bench had actually refrained from expressing themselves on the vires of Section 8 (2 ). Though I see no writ in this submission of the learned counsel in the light of the following observation made by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in para 5 of the judgment in the State of Punjab v. Ramji Lal, AIR 1971 SC 1228 on appeal against that Full Bench judgment:-

(3.) NOW coming to the second part of the question, it is not a matter of dispute before us that while repealing the Punjab Pre-emption Act of 1905 and replacing the same by the present Act, the present sub-section (2) was introduced mainly to protect from pre-emption, land required for commercial and industrial purposes and the Legislature in its wisdom conferred on the State Government the power to do away or at least to soften the rigour of the right of pre-emption when the land or immoveable property has been purchased or acquired for the common good of the society. This is so very clear from a bare reading of the Statement of Objects and Reasons recorded for enacting this provision. It is in exercise of this power that in these cases the State Government has respectively issued the two impugned notifications dated May 18, 1982 and May 5, 1982, exempting or declaring that 'no right of pre-emption shall exist with respect to' the specific sales made in favour of the vendees, i. e. , the private respondents. The reason that weighed with the State authorities to exempt the sales from pre-emption is that in both the cases the respondent-vendees had purchased the land in question 'for purposes of setting up an industrial unit,' i. e. , rice shellers, and it was in public interest to save these sales.