Venkatarama Ayyar, J.- These are petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India challenging the validity of various notifications issued by the State of Madras under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act 1 of 1894, declaring that certain lands were to be acquired for construction of houses. The petitioners are the owners of the lands proposed to be acquired under the notifications and their contention is that the purpose mentioned in the declaration is not a public one and that, in consequence, the acquisition is in contravention of Article 31(2) of the Constitution and, therefore, void. In some of the petitions, certain other points have also been raised but we have reserved consideration of these points to a later stage and heard arguments on the constitutional issue as to the validity of the acquisition.

It will be convenient to take writ petition No. 76 of 1951 for a statement of the material facts, that being the main petition argued and typical of the rest. Within the municipal limits of the City of Tiruchirapalli at a place called Chintamani there is a block of lands of the extent of 45 acres consisting of several fields owned by a number of persons. The petitioner owns some of them. A society called the Tiruchirapalli Co-operative House Construction Society, Ltd., was formed and registered under the Madras Co-operative Societies Act (VI of 1932), with the object of enabling its members to construct houses. This society considered that the aforesaid block of lands would serve as suitable building sites and moved the Government for its acquisition. The Government gave its consent to the scheme and on 15th June, 1950, issued a notification declaring that the lands were "needed for a public purpose, to wit, construction of houses" and in pursuance of this notification proceeded to acquire the lands. Awards were passed on 29th May, 1951 and 31st May, 1951. The petitioner has filed the present application attacking the validity of the acquisition proceedings.

Though it was alleged in the affidavit of the petitioner that no part of the compensation came from public funds and that, therefore, the requirements of section 6(1) had not been complied with, the objection was not pressed, the AdvocateGeneral having made a statement that one anna in the rupee was paid by the Government. This ground of attack must, therefore, be rejected. Vide Suryanarayana v. The Province of Madras1.

It was also argued that the acquisition proceedings were an infringement of the fundamental right of the petitioner to hold property recognised in Article 19 (1)(f) and that, therefore, they arc void. But Article 19(1)(f) must be read subject to Article 31(2) and where there is a valid acquisition under that Article there is no property in respect of which the rights conferred under Article 19(1)(f) could be claimed. In A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras2, the following observations occur in the judgment of Das, J.

"But suppose a person loses his property by reason of its having been compulsorily acquired under Article 31 he loses his right to hold the property and cannot complain that his fundamental right under sub-clause (f) of clause (1) of Article 19 has been infringed."

Referring to this observation the same learned Judge observed in Chiranjit Lal Chowdhury v. Union of India3,

"In Gopalan’s case,2I pointed out that the rights conferred by Article 19(1)(a) to (e) and (g) would be available to the citizen until he was under Article 21 deprived of his life or personal liberty according to procedure established by law and that the right to property guaranteed by Article 19(1)(f) would likewise continue until the owner was under Article 31 deprived of such property by authority of law. Therefore it will be necessary to consider first whether the shareholder of the company has been deprived of his or its property by authority of law under Article 31 for if he or it has been so deprived then the question of his or its fundamental right under Articl

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