The determination of the ceiling area and the surplus land has to be done with reference to the material date, namely, 8th June, 1973, as laid down in Section 5(1) of the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings (Amendment) Act, 1972.

M.P. Mehrotra, J.

This petition arises out of the proceedings under the Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act. The Petitioner was issued the usual notice u/s 10(2) of the said Act. He filed his objections and the Prescribed Authority rejected the objections. In the lower appellate court, however, the Petitioner partly succeeded and the surplus area was reduced from 2.72 acres of irrigated land to 1.69 acres of such land. The Petitioner has now come up in the instant petition and his learned Counsel, Sri Girdhar Malviya, has pressed before me two contentions. Firstly, he contended that the statement in the lower appellate court's order that the point about irrigation was not pressed in the said court is not correct. The lower appellate court in its order observed:

The next point about irrigation was not pressed and it is conceded that the plots are recorded as irrigated in the Khasras.

In the face of this categorical statement in the order of the lower appellate court, I am not inclined to accept the contention of the learned Counsel for the Petitioner that in reality the objection about irrigation was pressed in the said court. It has to be seen that the court did accept the other contention raised on behalf of the Petitioner and there was no reason why the said court would not have considered the objection about irrigation if the same had really been pressed. No Khasra entries have been placed by the Petitioner before this Court to suggest that the said statement in the lower appellate court's order is in any manner erroneous. The first contention is, therefore, rejected.

2. The second contention of the learned Counsel for the Petitioner is that the lower appellate court was wrong in granting relief in respect of plot No. 32 only to the extent of 1.13 biswas. He says that in fact the declaration u/s 143 of the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act was for the areas of two bighas and thirteen biswas and, therefore, the lower appellate court should have excluded two bighas 13 biswas from plot No. 32 and not only 1.13 biswas or 103 acres. Learned Counsel's contention is that the declaration was binding on the Prescribed Authority and even though it was granted on 20th August, 1974, still, it was in subsistance at the relevant period when the question of surplus was considered by the Prescribed Authority. In this connection Section 6(1)(a) has been relied on. The said provision lays down as under:

(1) Exemption of certain land from the imposition of ceiling-

(i) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, land falling in any of the categories mentioned below shall not be taken into consideration, for the purposes of determining the ceiling area applicable to, and the surplus land of a tenure-holder, namely-

(a) land used for an industrial purpose (that is to say, for purposes of manufacture, Preservation, storage or processing of goods), and in respect of which a declaration u/s 143 of the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition & Land Reforms Act, 1950 subsists. Shri Malviya contended that the declaration u/s 143 need not necessarily be prior to the commencement of the U.P. Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings (Amendment) Act, 1972 and it can also be of a date sub-sequent to the date of the commencement of the said Amendment Act, The learned Standing Counsel, on the other hand, has contended that the said interpretation of Section 6(1)(a) is not correct. It has to be seen that Section 5(1) of the said Act, which can almost be considered to be analogous to the charging section in a taxing Act, lays down as follows:

Imposition of ceiling, (1) On and from the commencement of the Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings (Amendment) Act, 1972, no tenure-holder shall be entitled to hold in the aggregate, throughout Uttar Pradesh, any land in excess of ceiling area applicable to him.

Therefore, the relevant date is laid down as the date when the aforesaid Amendment Act commenced. The said date was 8th June, 19