Constitutional validity of the Acts.

The petitioner challenges the constitutional validity of the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1955, as amended by Madras Act XIV of 1956 and the Madras Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act (Madras Act XXIV of 1956), in so far as the enactments affect the petitioner’s right under the ‘waram’ agreement entered into between him and the first respondent in 1955. Although the Madras Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act, 1956, is alone specified in the petition, the scope of the challenge was, with the consent of the learned Advocate-General, widened at the hearing so as to extend to the other two enactments as well, in so far as they affect the petitioner’s rights under the said ‘waram’ agreement. All the three enactments will for convenience be referred to as the impugned enactments.

The first respondent (hereinafter referred to as the respondent) filed a Petition — No. 1096 of 1957 — in the Rent Court at Mayuram in the Tanjore District praying that the fair rent payable by him to the petitioner be fixed under section 9 of the Madras Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act. The petitioner appeared before the Rent Court and alleged that the respondent was a tenant cultivating on “waram” basis from 1955 and that he had never been a lessee of the land agreeing to pay fixed rent. The petitioner contended that the Act was not applicable to “waram” tenure and that the Act, in any event, placed unreasonable restrictions on his right to acquire, hold and dispose of property, guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (f) of the Constitution and was hence of no effect as against him. Repeating those contentions, the petitioner files this petition in this Court praying for an appropriate writ prohibiting the Rent Court at Mayuram from enquiring into the respondent’s petition to fix fair rent.

In order to appreciate the petitioner’s contentions on the question of the constitutional validity of the impugned enactments, it is necessary to pass in rapid review, legislation enacted in this State since 1952 regulating the relations of landlords and tenants in the Tanjore District. Reports were widespread in 1951 that the Government contemplated legislation regulating the relationship of landowners and tenants in ryotwari areas. The apprehensions entertained by landowners regarding the form and content of such legislation led, particularly in the District of Tanjore, to what the Legislature considered unjust evictions of their tenants. Tenants thus affected tended to take the law into their own hands with a view to be restored to possession of the lands they had held. The Government could not immediately find other means of livelihood for tenants who were thrown out of the lands they were cultivating and considered it just that the great industry of agriculture should be so organised as equitably to support all the citizens who were for the time being dependent upon it for their livelihood, viz., landowners, tenants and farmhands or pannaiyals. The Governor of Madras hence passed Ordinance IV of 1952, Ordinance V of 1952 and Ordinance VI of 1952 with a view to regulate relations between landowners and tenants in the District of Tanjore. The substance of the Ordinances was enacted by the Legislature as the Tanjore Tenants and Pannaiyal Protection Act, 1952 (Madras Act XIV of 1952). The provisions of the Ordinances and of the Act regarding pannaiyals are not relevant for our present purposes. In the Act, the expression “cultivating tenant” or “tenant” was defined as meaning “a person who contributes his own physical labour or that of the members of his family in the cultivation of any land belonging to another under a tenancy agreement, express or implied . .” . Sections 7 and 8 of the Act prescribed the terms applicable to all tenancies. They said in effect that every tenant who was in possession of land or who would be let into possession within five years thereafter would continue in possession as such ten