1. When Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 11370 of 1975 which arises out of proceedings under the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 hereinafter referred to as the Act came up for hearing before Mufti, J. it was urged before him that in treating the entire area of plots Nos. 595 and 224 which formed subject matter of the proceeding as irrigated land, the authorities constituted under the Act had erred in law in construing Sub-clause (b) of clause firstly of Section 4-A of the Act. It was contended that the Khasra extracts for the years 1378 to 1380 F. relating to the two plots disclosed not only that during the relevant Fasli years two crops had been grown only over part of the areas thereof but the areas with dofasli crop also kept varying and the Prescribed Authority as well as the appellate authority had committed a patent error of law in treating the entire area covered by the two plots as irrigated land. Mufti, J. was not inclined to accept the contention. He has expressed his opinion in these words:

Manifest it is that both the plot have the source of irrigation. They did yield double crops in all the relevant years. True double crops were not grown over every inch of those plots in either of two seasons of any one of the above fasli years. True the entire area of the plot No. 224 was never irrigated actually from canal, yet these features are not going to make any difference. Section 4-A by clause firstly and thirdly envisages two essentials only for each category. In the one thereof should be an irrigation facility and growth of double crops. In the other the land should be situated within the effective command of a tube-well and capable of growing two crops. Both the plots stand well within these tests.

2. Before him, however, on behalf of the State reliance was placed on the single Judge decision of this Court in Ghasi Ram vs. State of U.P. and Others, (1977) AWC 402, in which a contrary view has been taken and it had been held that the requirements of clause firstly of the provision referred to earlier would not be satisfied unless it is shown that the two crops had been grown during the relevant years over the entire plot. He consequently referred to a larger Bench for its opinion, the following two questions:

1. What is true scope and effect of Sub-clause (b) of clause firstly of Section 4-A?

2. In particular, whether the said Sub-clause would take in the entire plot only if two crops were grown in every inch of the land covered by it?

3. Similar questions arose for consideration before Mufti, J. in Civil Misc. Writs Nos. 818, 4536 and 4754 of 1976 which also have been referred for the opinion of a larger Bench. All these petitions have consequently been connected and we are proceeding to deal with the questions referred in them.

4. The question referred by the learned single Judge for the opinion of a larger Bench are of vital importance in proceedings under the Act since ceiling area surplus land have both to be computed on the basis of the irrigated land held by the concerned tenure-holder. In answering the questions quoted above it is pertinent to consider as to whether the word land used in the Act is synonymous with the word plot or plots.

5. Section 3 of the Act defines grove land, holding and irrigated land, surplus land and user land but the word land itself has not been defined in the Act. Sub-section (21) of Section 3, however, provides that "the words and expressions not defined in this Act, but used in the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, shall have the meanings assigned to them in that Act." According to Section 3(14) of U.P. Act No. 1 of 1951 Land (except in Sections 109, 143 and 144 of Chapter VII) means land held or occupied for purposes connected with agriculture, horticulture, or animal husbandry which includes pisciculture and poultry farming." The definition of the word land as contained in U.P. Act No. 1 of 1951 throws no light on the question as