N. VENKATACHALA J.

( 1 ) THESE petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution, have been referred to a Division Bench.

( 2 ) IN these petitions, the petitioners have impugned the constitutional validity of several provisions of the Kar- nataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Principal act'), the Karnataka Land Rejforms (Amendment and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1973 (Kar. Act 1 of 1974) (hereinafter referred to as 'the amend ment Act') and o,f subsequent Acts by which the Principal Act was further amended.

( 3 ) AT the outset, it will be convenient to trace briefly the recent history of the legislation relating to agrarian reforms in our country and in Karnataka in particular. Our country is predominantly agricultural in spite of its industrial progress in recent years, for a large majority of its people depend upon agriculture for their livelihood. Immediately after the attainment of independence by our country, the State became aware of its primary duty to bring about agrarian reforms to improve the appalling condition of the tillers of soil and to increase the production of food and other produce from the land. Under our Constitution 'land' being a State subject, legislation to bring about agrarian reforms, had to be undertaken by the States. When certain constitutional hurdles in the way of implementation of agrarian reforms were seen, the Constitution itself came to be amended so as to give protection to such legislation.

( 4 ) THE thrust of agrarian reforms consisted of reforms of the land tenure, which forms the foundation of the agrarian structure. Such land reform: were brought about in three stages.

( 5 ) THE first stage, of land reforms consisted of abolition of Zamindari, jahagirdari and Inamdari systems of land tenure and conferring of ownership of lands on their actual tillers so that they might enjoy the full fruits of their hard labour.

( 6 ) LATER, it was found that absentee landlordism was prevalent to a considerable extent even in respect of lands under the Ryotwari tenure and that a large number of land holders who had leased such lands, were collecting from actual cultivators of those lands, rents which formed substantial portions of the yield therefrom. Besides, the evils of Zamindari system were found to have permeated into the ryotwari tenure also, though not to the same extent. This led to the second phase of the land reforms consisting of tenancy legislation- (i) to ensure to tenants security of tenure and protection from eviction from the lands held by them; and (ii ). to prevent rack-renting by fixing 'fair rent, so that tenants may retain major portions of the fruits of their labour.

( 7 ) IT was then found that the tenancy laws, aimed at security of tenure and fixation of fair-rent, were inadequate to give full protection to adtual cultivators of lands from exploitation by their, landlords. Consequently, in the third stage of the land reforms, all intermediaries between the; State and the actual cultivators were sought to be eliminated by extinguishing the rights of landlords in tenanted lands and conferring on tenants full ownership or occupancy rights in such lands. However, where such landlords intended to cultivate personally their tenanted lands, they were permitted to resume portions of such lands subject to certain ceiling limits. Concentration of holding of lands in the hands of comparatively a small number of persons was sought to be eliminated by imposing ceiling limits as to the extents of lands that could be held by individual persons and families and by taking from them surplus lands in excess of such ceiling limits for distributing them among displaced tenants and landless persons including landless agricultural labourers.

( 8 ) THE Principal Act sought to bring about land reforms envisaged in the third stage of land reforms. However, the Amendment Act went a step further and took away the landlords' right to resume for their personal cultivation even portion

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