IMPORTANT POINT
Power of the Sovereign legislature to legislate within its field, both prospectively and retrospectively cannot be questioned.

JUDGMENT

Asok Kumar Ganguly, J.—

1. These appeals are directed against the judgment dated 17.4.2000 of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla whereby the Division Bench of the High Court disposed of C.W.P. No.851/96 alongwith C.W.P. No.1192/96, as common questions of law and facts arose in those cases.

C.W.P. No. 851/96 was filed by Narain Singh while C.W.P. No.1192/96 was filed by three persons namely Shri Surat Singh, Shiv Singh Tegta and Murki Lal and in both the writ petitions, the respondents were the same

2. In both these cases, the constitutional validity of the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue (Amendment and Validation) Act, 1996 (hereinafter called ‘the amendment Act’) was challenged as being in conflict with the original provisions of the various sections of the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1953 (Act No.6 of 1954) (hereinafter called ‘the Principal Act’).

3. It was also contended in the writ petition that the amendment is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution.

4. The petitioners of C.W.P. No. 1192/96 and six other land owners of Tehsil Rohru and Chirgaon, District Shimla had earlier filed a C.W.P. No.206 of 1998 titled as Thakur Gyan Singh and others Vs. State of Himachal Pradesh and others wherein the petitioners sought the following relief:-

“(i) complete the on going land revenue settlement operations as second Revised Settlement strictly in accordance with the intent of the two notifications one pertaining to the special revision of the existing records of right under Section 33 of the H.P. Land Revenue Act, 1953 and the other for general assessment of land revenue under Section 53 of the said Act;

(ii) withdraw Instruction Nos. 2, 4 and supplementary instruction Nos. 2, 23 and 32 of Compendium of Instructions, issued by the 4th respondent (Settlement Officer);

(iii) bring up-to-date at re-settlement the field map of the previous settlement without recourse to re-measurement and preparation of the record of rights including wazib- ul-urs etc. strictly in, accordance with Instructions contained in Para 222 of the Settlement Manual read with Appendix XXI thereunder and consequently directing the deletion of Naksha Bartan illegally prepared and not to convert the Classification of the government waste land recorded in the revenue records as also in occupation of the estate-right holders into various lands and directing the modification of the government policy with respect to regularisation of encroachment detected during the settlement proceedings; and

(iv) direct the respondents not to hand over/deliver the revenue records to the revenue mohal staff till the completion of the settlement including assessment of land revenue, incorporated in the jamabandies.”

5. The said writ petition was disposed of by a reasoned and detailed judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court on 13/01/1994. While accepting the writ petition, the Division Bench issued the following directions:-

“1. The respondents are directed to complete the on going land revenue settlement operations in the area in question as “second revised settlement” in accordance with the instructions contained in Paragraph 222 and Appendix XXI of the Punjab Settlement Manual.

2. The compendium of instructions (P-21) be amended in consonance with and pertaining to the procedure applicable to special revision of record-of-rights. Resultantly, instructions continuing to be contained in P-21, contrary to letter June, 1986 (P-22) are ordered to be deleted.

3. The new record-of-rights pertaining to the areas in question, prepared in the current settlement in relation to ‘Mohal-Bandi’, ‘Naksha Bartan’, ‘Wazib-ul-urs’, classification of land, proposed DPFs and UPFs etc., be ignored and re-settlement be started subsequent to the stage of Forecast Report.”

6. Aggrieved by the abovementioned judgment dated 13/01/1994 of the Division Bench in C.W.P. No.206/1988, the State filed a Special Leave Petition before this Court. Leave was granted and the