JUDGMENT

Deepak Gupta, J.

1. The State of Madhya Pradesh enacted the Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’). The Bill in this regard was published on 15th September, 1959 and the Act was published on 1st October, 1960 after receiving the assent of the President of India. Section 7 of the Act provided the maximum extent of land to be held by a person and when the Act was initially passed, a land holder was not entitled to hold land in excess of 28 standard acres. Standard acre was defined under Section 2(n) of the Act to mean one acre of perennially irrigated land or two acres of seasonally irrigated land or three acres of dry land. Section 4 of the Act provided that any transaction of land by the land holder by way of sale, gift, exchange, partition etc. could be verified by the competent authority, provided such transfer of land had been made after the date of publication of the Bill i.e. 15.09.1959. Sub-section 2 of Section 4 of the Act provided that this section would not apply to a transfer made by the land holder who does not hold land in excess of the ceiling area on the date of transfer. Section 5 of the Act restricts