ORDER (Per Chandrachud C.J.I., Bhagwati. and Krishna Iyer JJ.) :- We hold that the entire Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act of 1976 is valid save and except Section 27 (1) insofar as it imposes a restriction on transfer of any urban or urbanisable land with a building or of a portion of such building, which is within the ceiling area.

CHANDRACHUD. C. J. (For himself and on behalf of P. N. Bhagwati J.):- 2. We have perused the judgment prepared by Brother Tulzapurkar with care but, with respect we are unable to agree with him that the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 33 of 1976, does not further the Directive Principles of State Policy in Clauses (b) and (c) of Art. 39 of the Constitution. The vice from which a provision here or a provision there of the impugned Act may be shown to suffer will not justify the conclusion that the Act is not intended to or does not, by its scheme, in fact implement or achieve the purposes of Clauses (b) and (c) of Art. 39.

3. The definition of family in Section 2 (f), which in relation to a person means the individual, the wife or husband, as the case may be, of such individual mid their unmarried minor children, will not necessarily lead to concentration of wealth in the hands of a few persons or families. Such is not the intendment, nor the drive, nor the direct and inevitable consequence of the aforesaid definition of family.

4. Section 23 of the Act is in our opinion valid and does not suffer from any constitutional infirmity. The definition of the word industry in Cl. (b) of the Explanation to that section is undoubtedly unduly wide since it includes "any business, profession, trade, undertaking or manufacture". If sub-section (1) of S. 23 were to stand alone, no doubt could have arisen that the Urban Land Ceiling Act is a facade of a social welfare legislation and that its true, though concealed, purpose is to benefit favoured private individuals or associations of individuals. But the preponderating provision governing the disposal of excess vacant land acquired under the Act is the one contained in sub-section (4) of Section 23 whereby, all vacant lands deemed to have been acquired by the State Government under the Act "shall be disposed of................ to subserve the common good". The provisions of sub-section (4) are "subject to the provisions of sub-sections (1), (2) and (3) but the provisions of sub-section (1) are enabling and not compulsive and those of sub-sections (2) and (3) are incidental to the visions of sub-section (1). The disposal of excess vacant lands must there fore be made strictly in accordance with the mandate of sub-section (4) of Section 23, subject to this, that in a given case such land may be allotted to any person, for any purpose relating to, or in connection with, any industry or for the other purposes mentioned in sub-sec. (1), provided that by such allotment, common good will be subserved. The governing test of disposal of excess land being social good, any disposal in any particular case or cases which does not subserve that purpose will be liable to be struck down as being contrary to the scheme and intendment of the Act. The Preamble to the Act ought to resolve interpretational doubts arising out of the defective drafting of Section 23. It shows that the Act was passed with the object of preventing concentration of urban land in the hands of a few persons and with a view to bringing about an equitable distribution of land in urban agglomerations to subserve the common good. Common good being the writing on the wall, any disposal which does not serve that purpose will be outride the scope of the Act and therefore lacking in competence in diverse senses, Private property cannot under our Constitution be acquired or allotted for private purposes though an enabling power like that contained in sub-section (1) of Section 23 may be exercised in cases where the common good dictates the distribution of excess vacant land to an industry, as defined i