Dhirubha Devisingh Gohil v. The State of Bombay.

JAGANNADHADAS J .-These are appeals by leave granted by the High Court of Bombay under article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution against its common judg-ment disposing of certain applications under article 226. The short point involved in these appeals 1s whether the Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition Act, 1949, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is valid in law. The impugned Act, as its very name indicates, was for the purpose of ~bolishing Taluqdari tenures in Bombay. Section 3 of the Act enacts that with effect from the date on which the Act was to come into force the taluqdari tenure wherever it prFailed shall be deemed to have beeri abolished. Under section 5(I)(a) all taluqdari lands are and shall be liable to the payment of land revenue in accordance with the provisions of the Bombay Land Revenue Code and the rules made there-under. Under section 6, broadly stated, all the items of property which are comprised within the taluqdari and belong to the talqudar vest in the Government as its property and all rights held by the taluqdar in such property shall be deemed to have been extinguished. Section 7 provides for payment of compensation in respect of the property so vested and rights so extinguished. It also specifies the principles for and the manner of assessing and granting that compensation. Section 14 provides for compensation with reference to the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act being payable in respect of any of the rights extinguished but not covered by the provisions of section 7 or any other section of the Act. These broadly are the main features of the impugned Act relevant for the 1954 present purpose. Dhirubha

The attack on the validity of the Act with reference Devisingh •• Gohil to these provisions is that the Act is expropriatory, Till State qf that it is not for any ,public purpose and that the com-Bombay. pensation with it provides is illusory. Now so far as Jagannadhadas J. the requirement of a public purpose is concerned it is too late in the day to maintain the contention that the abolition of the kind affected by the Act is not for a public purpose. The only serious argument, therefore, is as to the alleged illusory character of the compensa-tions provided by the Act. The Act, it may be noticed, was one passed by the Bombay Legislature in the year 1949. It received the assent of the Governor-General on the 18th January, 1950, and was gazetted on the 24th January, 1950. The attack in the High Court was accordingly based on the alleged violation of the provisions of sect.ion 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, which is as follows :

"(I) No person shall be deprived of his property in British India save by authority of law.

(2) Neither the Federal nor a Provincial Legisla-ture shall have power to make any law authorising the compulsory acquisition for public purposes of any land, or any commercial or industrial undertaking or any interest in, or in any company owning, any commercial or industrial undertaking, unless the law provides for the payment of compensa-tion for the property acquired and either fixes the amount of the compensation, or specifies the principles on which and the manner in which, it is to be determined."

It was contended before the High Court that this was an Act in respect of which a certificate could have been obtained from the President under clause ( 6) of article 31 of the Constitution in order to secure immunity from the challenge of unconstitutionality but since that has not been done, the liability to its challenge with reference to the alleged violation of section 299 of the Government of India Act remains.

The learned Judges of the High Court without going into the question whether or not under any of the 1954 prov1s10ns of the present Constitution this piece of Dhirubha · legislation was immune from attack of the kind put Dtvisingh, Gohil forward, dealt with the merits of the challenge and

v. held that the Act was for a public purpose and that Tiu State of

Bomb9. the compensation provided was neither illusory nor Jo:omwdhal/a.J. unfair and that accordingly there was no violation of

the provisions· of Section 299 of the Government of India Act.

It is true that this is an Act which could have been submitted to the President for ·his certification under clause (6) of article 31 and that no such course has been adopted. But this Act 1s one of the Acts specified in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution being item ( 4) thereof and article 31-B which has been inserted in the Constitution by the First Amendment thereof m 1951 is as follows :

"Without prejudice to the generality of the provi-sions contained in article 31-A, none of the· Acts and Regulations specified in the Ninth Schedule nor any of the prov1S1ons thereof shall be deemed to be void, or ever to have become void, on the ground that such Act, Regulation or provision is inconsistent with, or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by, any provisions of this Part, and notwithstanding any judg-ment, decree or order of any court or tribunal to the contrary, each of the said Acts and Regulations shall, subject to the power of any competent Legislature to repeal or amend it, continue in force."

By the above amendment therefore and by specifi-cally enumerating this Act in the Ninth Schedule, it appears to us to have been clearly and unequivocally intended that the prov1S1ons of this Act should be immune from attack of the kind put forward. Learned counsel for the appellants, however, strenuously con-tends before us to the contrary. He points out that the validity of the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950 (Bihar Act XXX of 1950) which is the very first item in the Ninth Schedule was allowed to be challenged 111 this Court after the enactment of the First Amendment of the Constitution and that this Court has in fact held certain of the prov1s10ns thereof to be invalid. The judgment of this Court doubtless shows that the challenge was allowed and given effect to notwithstand-1954 ing the protection given by article 31-B in respect of the Dhirubha alleged violation of the fundamental rights under the Devisingh Gohil . v. Constitution. A careful perusal of the judgment how-Th< State of ever shows that the challenge allowed was as to the Bombay. competency of the Legislature to enact certain provi-Jagannadhada> J. sions of the impugned Act which, in the opinion of the majority of the Court, were in the nature of fraud on the exercise of the legislative power ( vide The State of Bihar v. Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar Singh of Darbhanga and Others(1) ) : Learned counsel accordingly urges that the protection under article 31-B is confined to a challenge based on the provisions of the Constitu-tion and that it is therefore open to him to put forward a challenge based on a distinct ground, viz., in this instance violation of the provisions of section 299 of the Government of India Act. He relies on the differ-ence in language between article 31-B and clause (6) of article 31, which in terms refers to contravention also of the provisions of sub-section (2) of section 299 of the Government of India Act. It appears to us that takes too narrow a view of article 31-B. What article 31-B protects is not a mere "contravention of the provisions"

of Part III of the Constitution but an attack on the grounds that the impugned Act is "inconsistent with or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by any provisions of this Part." One of the rights secured to a person by Part III of the Constitution is a right that his property shall be acquired only for public purposes and under a law authorising such acquisition and providing for compensation which is either fixed by the law itself or regulated by principles specified by the law. That is also the very right which was previously secured to the person under section 299 of the Government of India Act. The challenge now made to the validity of the impugned Act is based on the alleged violation of that right. Nor does this chal-lenge cease to be in substance anything other than a challenge in respect of the violation of the said right notwithstanding that under section 299 of the Govern-ment of India Act the right is secured in terms which 1954 restricts the power of the Legislature and operates as a Dhirobha restrain on its competency. What under the Govern-Dtvisingh Gohil ment of India Act was a provision relating to the com-

v.

Ti1' Stat, of petency of the Legislature, was also clearly in the

Bombay. nature of a fundamental right of the person affected. Jogannadhadas j. This appears from the Report of the Joint Parliamen-

tary Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, Vol. I, ' Part I, paragraphs . 366 and 369. But it is urged, that even so, article 31-B protects only the violation of the fundamental right in so far as "it was conferred by Part III of the Constitution" and that this right cannot be said to have been "conferred" by the Constitution. We cannot agree with this contention. This is clearly a case where the concerned right which was secured under section 299 of the Government of India Act in the form of a fetter on the competency of the Legislature and which in substance was a funda-mental right, was lifted into the formal category of a fundamental right ~long with other fundamental rights recognised in the present Constitution. There is there-fore nothing inappropriate in referring to this right which was pre-existing, along with the other funda-mental rights for the first time secured by this Consti-tution, when grouping them together, as fundamental rights "conferred" by the Constitution. What is important to notice in the phraseology of article 31-B. is that the protection is not merely against the contravention of certain provisions but an attack on the ground of unconstitutional abridgement of certaiw rights. It will be illogical to construe article 31-B as. affording protection only so far as these rights are· taken away by an Act in violation of the provisions of the new Constitution but not when they are taken away by an Act in violation of section 299 of the Govern- . ment of India Act which has been repealed. The intention of the Constitution to protect each and every one of the Acts specified in the Ninth Schedule from any challenge on the ground of violation of any of the fundamental rights secured under Part III of the Constitution, irrespective of whether they are pre-existing or new rights, is placed beyond any doubt or question by the very emphatic language of a-rticle 31-& which declares that none of the provlSlons of the 1954 specified Acts shall be deemed to be void or ever to have Dhirubha become void on the ground of the alleged violation of Devsingh Gohil' the rights indicated and "notwithstanding any judg-v. The State of ment, decree or order of any court or tribunal." That Bomb/!Y. intention is also . emphasised by the positive declaration Jagannadhodasj.. that "each of the said Acts or Regulations shall, subject to the power of any competent Legislature to repeal or amend it, continue in force."

Vve are, therefore, clearly of the opinion that the challenge to the validity of the Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition Act, 1949 on the ground put forward was not open. The appeals must, therefore, be dismissed with costs. Costs one set.

Appeals dismissed.

CENTRAL BANK OF INDIA 1954

v. October 12'

RAM NARAIN.

MEHR CHAND MAHAJAN C.J., MuKHERJEA,

V1v1AN BosE, JAGANNADHADAS and VENKATARAMA AYYAR JJ.]

Offence committed by a person in Pakistan-Migration to India and acquiring domicil therein-Courts in lndia-/urisdiction-Trial-Indian Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) s. 4-Criminal Procedure Code (Act V of 1898), s. 188-Whether apply under the circumstances-Domicil, definition of.

A person accused of an offence under the Indian Penal Code and committed in a district which after the partition of India became part of Pakistan cannot be tried for that offence by a Criminal Court in India after his migration to India and acquiring thereafter the status of a citizen of India.

The fact that after the comm1ss10n of an offence a person becomes domiciled in another country, or acquires citizenship of time when that person was neither the national of that country retrospectively for trying offences committed and completed at a time when that person was neither the national of that country nor was he domiciled there.

According to section 4 of the Indian Penal Code and section J 88 of the Code of Criminal Procedure if at the time of the commis-sion of the offence the person committing it is a citizen of India then even if the offence is committed outside India he is subject to.