RAJ SAHIBAN SHERSINGH Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two connected applications for issue of a writ under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, and the applicants pray that the Rajasthan Produce Rents Regulating Act (No. 15) of 1951 (hereinafter called the main Act) as amended by the Rajasthan Produce Rents Regulating (Amendment) Act, (No. 14) of 1952 (hereinafter called the Amendment Act) be declared unconstitutional, and therefore void and unenforceable. These applications along with similar other applications came up for hearing on the 31st March, 1953, and subsequent days and were heard together. This judgment will, therefore, govern all other cases which were listed along with these two cases for hearing on the same dates, as the points involved in all these cases are exactly the same.

(2.) The applicant in case No. 351 is Raj Sahiban Shersingh, jagirdar of Nibaj in the district of Sirohi, while Sawai Singh, a Bhomia in villages Kakrana and Udaipur in district Jhunjhunu, is the applicant in case No. 544. Their case is that they had always been receiving from their tenants one-third to one-fourth of the gross produce of land depending upon whether the land was un-irrigated or irrigated. By section 4 of the main Act, the share of the land-holder was reduced to one-fourth of the gross produce notwithstanding any custom, usage or practice to the contrary or anything contained in any law, enactment, rule, order or instrument, and this applied whether the land was irrigated or unirrigated. By the Amendment Act, the, share of the landholder was further reduced to one-sixth of the gross produce excluding Bhusa, dry stalks of a crop or grass or any other natural produce. Further, by the Amendment Act the law was made applicable to all agricultural lands in Rajasthan instead of lands situated in unsettled areas, which was the provision of the main Act.

(3.) The attack on the constitutionality of the two Acts is three-fold. In the first place, it is urged that the bill relating to the main Act was not prepared by the Raj Pramukh, that he never declared in respect of the bill relating to the main Act that he assented to the said bill, and; that the formalities of Article 200 of the Constitution, as amended by Article 212A were never complied with in connection with the main Act. The main Act being thus invalid, the Amendment Act, being merely an Amending Act, became invalid also.