A statutory provision that confers a right on a tenant to purchase the landlord's property, even in the absence of any suit or proceeding for eviction, is arbitrary, unreasonable, and violative of the landlord's fundamental right to hold property.

SRINIVASAN, J.

In these matters, Original Petitions were filed in the court of the District Munsif, Srivilluputhur under Section 9(1)(a)(ii) of the Madras City Tenants' Protection Act (Act III of 1922) as amended by Madras Act IV of 1972 and XXIV of 1973 for direction to the respective respondents to sell the properties to the petitioners for the price fixed by the Court. The petitions were numbered and taken on file as O.P. 20 of 1973, 3 of 1974, 4 of 1974, 22 to 24 of 1973, 29 and 30 of 1973 and 17 and 18 of 1973 respectively. The respondents, who are the owners of the lands, questioned the constitutional validity of the said Section and raised other grounds contesting the sustainability of the petitions. When the matters were pending in the Court of the District Munsif, petitions were filed in this Court under Article 228 of the Constitution of India for transferring the Original Petitions to this Court as they involved the constitutional validity of a provision in an enactment. Those petitions were ordered and the Original Petitions were directed to be transferred to this Court. Though they ought to have been numbered in this Court as Original Petitions, they have been numbered as Referred cases erroneously. The mistake committed by the Registry in giving the proper nomenclature to the petitions need not detain us from disposing of the same.

2. The question to be decided in these cases is whether Section 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants' Protection Act (Act III of 1922) as amended by Tamil Nadu Act XXIV of 1973 is constitutionally valid. The attack is not against the entire Section 9. It is only against clause (1)(a)(ii) of the Section which was introduced by Tamil Nadu Act XXIV of 1973.

It is contended that the clause violates Article 14 of the Constitution of India inasmuch as it is arbitrary and it has no nexus with the object of the Act. It is also stated that it travels beyond the scope of the object of the Act. The second contention is that when the clause was introduced, Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31 of the Constitution of India were inforce and the clause violated the said provisions and is consequently invalid and unconstitutional.

3. Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution declared the fundamental right of all citizens to acquire, hold and dispose of property. Article 19(5) of the Constitution provided that the said right shall not affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposed, or prevent the State Government from making any law imposing reasonable restrictions on the exercise of such right in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe. Article 31 of the Constitution provided that no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law. By the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978, Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31 of the Constitution were deleted with effect from 20-6-1979. It is now settled law that the constitutional validity of an Act has to be decided on the basis of the Constitution as it was on the date when the Act was passed subject to any retrospective amendment of the Constitution. Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978, has been held not to be retrospective. Vide Waman Rao v. Union of India, and Manoei Francisco v. Collector of Daman, 1984 AIR(Bombay) 461. Hence, the question whether Section 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants' Protection Act as amended by Act XXIV of 1973 offends the provisions of Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31 of the Constitution of India has to be considered.

4. Tamil Nadu City Tenants' Protection Act (III of 1922) had originally the name, the Madras City Tenants' Protection Act. At the commencement, the object of the Act was to give protection to tenants of land belonging to others for a long period, who had put up building on the land in the hope that they would not be evicted from the land. The Act was made applicable only to the tenancies created before the commencement o