An Inam village is an estate only if the village was either granted or confirmed or recognised by the British Government and further that the grant must have been of the entire village.

Judgement

MOHAPATRA, J :- These are petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India in the following circumstances: The present petitioners in O.J.C. 144/54 are in possession and enjoyment, as absolute owners, of about 60 acres of inam lands in the village of Rajavallipalli, Purushottampur Taluk in the district of Ganjam. The petitioners in O.J.C. 317/54 are in possession of 160 acres of Inam lands of the same village. They claim that the lands in suit along with other lands were the subject-matter of grants during the Mahomedan period in the year 1743 A.D.

The grants consisted of areas from three different adjoining villages of Damodarpalli, Sahapur and Bhatakumurada. As the lands granted were situate at one place they constituted the separate village of Rajavallipalli long after 1743 but before the Permanent Settlement. During the enquiry by the Inam Commissioner in the year 1862 the said grants of the year 1743 were confirmed and Inam Title Deed No. 5794 was issued. The confirmation was indeed subject to the payment of Rs. 102/- as quite rent.

The petitioners aver that even though at the time of the Permanent Settlement the village was entered in the revenue accounts as Rajavallipalli Mokhasa. the Inam grant was never of any named village nor of a whole village, and, as such, the Inam grant does not constitute an estate within the meaning of S. 3(2)(d), Madras Estates Land Act, 1908 (hereinafter called the Madras Act), as amended by Orissa Act 17 of 1947.

The Government of Orissa issued Notification No. 2620-XV-2/54-E.A dated 1-7-1954, under S. 3, Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951 (Orissa Act 1 of 1952), hereinafter called the Act, on the basis that village Rajavallipalli is an estate, and, as such, since the date of the notification it has vested in the State of Orissa. The petitioners, therefore, have come with this petition for quashing the notification as illegal inasmuch as village Rajavallipalli is not an estate, and for issue of Writ of Mandamus restraining the State of Orissa from taking possession of the village.

2. The question to be determined is whether the Inam village Rajavallipalli is an estate within the meaning of the Act. Section 2(g) of the Act defines an estate as :

" Estate means any land held by an Intermediary and included under one entry in any of the general registeres of revenue-paying lands and revenue-free lands, prepared and maintained under the law for the time being in force by the Collector of a district, and includes revenue-free lands not entered in any register and all classes of tenures or under-tenures or an inam estate or part of an estate and in relation to merged territories means any collection of Mahals or villages held by the same Intermediary which has been or is liable to be assessed as one unit to land revenue whether such land revenue be payable or has been released or compounded for or redeemed in whole or in part;"

As the definition makes specific provisions for including Inam estates as an estate within the meaning of the Act, we shall have to concentrate upon the question whether the village in question in an Inam estate. Indeed Inam estate has not been defined in the Act; but there is a provision under S. 2(q) of the Act running to the effect :

"all words and expressions used in this Act but not defined in it, shall have, with reference to any part of the State of Orissa, the same meaning as defined in the tenancy laws and rules for the time being in force and in the absence of written laws and rules as recognised in the custom for the time being obtaining in that part of the State of Orissa".

In accordance with the provisions of S. 2(q) of the Act, therefore, we shall have to search for the meaning of the Inam estate in the tenancy laws prevailing in that part of the country. The Madras Act dues not define in so many terms inam estate, but in the definition of estate in S. 3 of the Madras Act it is sufficiently made clear by the provisions of S. 3(2)(d) under what circumsta