Judgment

S. K. DAS, J. : These two appeals on a certificate granted by the High Court of Patna are from the judgment and decree of the said High Court dated December 10, 1954. By the said judgment and decree the High Court dismissed two appeals which arose out of two suits, Title Suit No. 42 of 1950 and Title Suit No. 23 of 1952, which were tried together and dismissed with costs by the learned Subordinate Judge of Deoghar.

2. The plaintiffs of those two suits are the appellants before us. One of the appellants Thakur Manmohan Deo was the holder of a ghatwali tenure commonly known as the Rohini ghatwali, situate within the subdivision of Deoghar in the district of the Santal Parganas. The other appellant Tikaitni Faldani Kumari was the holder of the Pathrole ghatwali also situate in the same sub-division. Both these ghatwali tenures were formerly known as Birbhum ghatwalis and were governed by Bengal Regulation XXIX of 1814. In the year 1950 was enacted the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950 (Bihar Act 30 of 1950), hereinafter called the Act. The Act came into force on September 25, 1950. The validity of the Act was challenged in the Patna High Court on grounds of a violation of certain fundamental rights and the High Court held it to be unconstitutional on those grounds. The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, was enacted on June 18, 1951, and in appeals from the decision of the Patna High Court this Court held in State of Bihar v. Kameshwar Singh, 1952 SCR 889 at p. 898 that the Act was not unconstitutional or void on the grounds alleged, except with regard to the provisions in S. 4(b) and S. 23(f) thereof. The validity of the Act is, therefore, no longer open to question on those grounds, though in one of the suits out of which these two appeals have arisen, it was contended that the Act was ultra vires the Constitution.

3. The principle issue in the two suits which now survives is issue No. 3 which said : "Do the provisions of the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950, purport to acquire the plaintiff s ghatwalis? If so, are they ultra vires in their application to such ghatwalis?" This issue was decided against the appellants by the learned Subordinate Judge and the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge was upheld on appeal by the High Court of Patna in its judgment and decree dated December 10, 1954, from which decision these two appeals have come to us.

4. Three main points have been urged on behalf of the appellants. The first point is one of construction and the appellants contend that on a proper construction of the relevant provisions of the Act, it does no apply to ghatwali tenures like the Rohini and Pathrole ghatwalis. Secondly, it is contended that if the provisions of the Act apply to the appellants ghatwali tenures, then the State legislature was not competent to enact it, because ghatwali tenures like the Rohini and Pathrole ghatwalis, were of a quasi-military nature and if the Act applies to them, it must be held to relate to items 1 and 2 of the Union (List I) and, therefore, outside the competnece of the State legislature. The third contention is that the Act does not purport to repeal Bengal Regulation XXIX of 1814 and inasmuch as the said Regulation deals with special tenures, the special law enacted with regard to such tenures would not be affected by the general law with regard to land reforms as embodied in the Act. We shall deal with these three contentions in the order in which we have stated them. But before we do so, it is necessary to explain, briefly the nature of these ghatwali tenures.

5. We may quote here some of the provisions of Bengal Regulation XXIX of 1814. The Regulation says in S. 1 that lands held by the class of persons denominated ghatwals in the district of Birbhum form a peculiar tenure to which the provisions of the existing Regulations are not expressly applicable; it then states that according to the former usages and constitution of the country, this class of persons are entitled to ho