1. The constitutionality of the Kanam Tenancy Act, No. XXIV of 1955, hereinafter referred to as the Act, has been challenged in these ten writ petitions. Three landlords or 'jenmies' are the petitioners in O.P. Nos. 339/56,106/57 and 208/58, and claim part of the Act to be violative of their fundamental rights under Art.14,19 (1)(f) and 31. The remaining seven petitions are by the holders of kanam tenures, who dispute the Cochin Devaswom Board's right to auction their properties due to their failure to pay rent in kind, whose money value had yet to be determined in exercise of the powers under the Act. The Devaswom Board, in the replies, not only adopt the plea of the Act not being constitutional due to the landlords' fundamental rights having been infringed; but further claim the Act not having repealed the earlier enactments, under which holders of kanam tenures in the Devaswom lands, were subject to special powers, that authorised auctioning of the tenants' properties on the failure to pay the rent. Therefore, the two questions arising for decisions in the ten petitions, are how far the Act is constitutional and, assuming it to be such, whether the Act governs all ka