Judgement

JAGANNADHA DAS, C. J. :- These are applications under Art.226 of the Constitution for the issue of mandatory writs against the State of Orissa restraining them from issuing any notifications or taking any other steps under the Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1 of 1952, in so far as the estates to which these applications relate. These eight applications concern eight permanently settled estates of the ex-Madras area, which since 1-4-1936, became part of the then newly formed State of Orissa. All the applications involve substantially the same questions and are therefore dealt with together. 2. The trend of economic and political thought of the nation has insisted upon the abolition of Zamindari tenure and the elimination of intermediaries between the State and the cultivator as the first step in any general measure of agrarian reform. It has been considered that concentration of large blocks of land in the hands of a limited number of Zamindars denying fair distribution thereof to the cultivators and the existence of intermediaries between the State and the cultivators, tending to insecurity and oppressive rents for the tillers of the soil, and the development of absentee landlordism and sub-in-feudation of tenures, have produced deleterious effects on the improvement of agriculture which is the main occupation of the predominently large rural population of the country. In consonartce with this trend of ideas, quite a number of States have taken steps to abolish the Zamindaries and for eliminating intermediaries even before the new Constitution of India came into force. Schedule 9 of the Constitution, which has been added by a later amendment of the Constitution, enumerates the various enactments passed by some of the States in this behalf. Three of those legislative measures viz., the Estates Abolition Acts of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh came up almost simultaneously for the consideration of Courts. The Patna High Court pronounced the Bihar Act to be unconstitutional, while the High Courts of Allahabad and Nagpur pronounced the Acts of their respective States to be valid. As against these judgments, the unsuccessful parties presented appeals or applications to the Supreme Court. While the matter was thus pending and in view of the Patna judgment, the provisional Parliament of India took it up on hand and amended the Constitution by enacting new Articles 31-A and 31-B with retrospective operation. The validity of this amendment was challenged before the Supreme Court, but it was upheld by the judgment in -Shankari Prasad Singh v. The Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 458(A). In the light of this judgment, the main ground on which the Patna High Court held the Bihar Act to be unconstitutional was no longer available. But various other objections to the validity of the concerned Acts as a whole were raised before the Supreme Court at the hearing of the Bihar appeal and those objections were all unanimously overruled by the Court in its judgment reported in - State of Bihar v. Kameshwar Singh, AIR 1952 SC 252 (B), and only a few specific provisions were held invalid by a majority. All this is now passing into history.

3. The Orissa Estates Abolition Act 1952, the validity of the entirety of which or of parts thereof, is the question that substantially arises on these applications, is not one of the Acts mentioned in the 9th Schedule of the Constitution. It does not, therefore, get the protection of the new Article 31-B. But the Orissa Estates Abolition bill was introduced in the State Legislative Assembly on 17-1-1950 and was passed by the Legislative Assembly on 28-9-51. It was also reserved by the State Governor for consideration of the President and received his assent on 23-1-52. This Act, therefore, obtains the protection of Article 31-A, and of the new Article 31(A) of the Constitution, in so far as they are applicable to the provisions thereof. It is necessary to note that there have been some changes from the