In this writ petition the question which surfaces for consideration is whether the petitioner was eligible for allotment of land under the scheme of the Bhoodan Yagna and the provisions of Section 14 of the U.P. Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred as Act) and if not whether allotment made in favour of the petitioner was liable to be cancelled in exercise of powers under Section 15-A of the Act.
Admitted facts are that the petitioner is an institution recognized under the U.P. Intermediate Education Act, 1921 and is imparting education including the subject of agriculture. Petitioner by the very nature of its activity is not an agriculturist and is not earning livelihood through agriculture. Nonetheless, petitioner was allotted various plots of land, 16 in number having a total area of 24.30 acre situate in village Bhadua, Pargana Bharthana, Tehsil and District Etah, under Section 14 of the Act.
On a complaint made by one Rookampal Singh, that the land was illegally allotted to the petitioner under the Act, the Up Zila Adhikari submitted a report dated 3.7.06. On the report Case No. 7 of 2007 under Section 15-A of the Act was registered on 29.11.2006 against the petitioner for the cancellation of the allotment of the aforesaid plots.
After notice was issued to the petitioner and an objection was filed by it and on inquiry in respect whereof report was submitted by the Up Zila Adhikar on 1.8.08, the Collector vide impugned order dated 21.10.11 cancelled the allotment made in favour of the petitioner inter alia on the ground that the petitioner was not entitle to allotment of any land under the Bhoodan Scheme and the provisions of the Act. The petitioner is not a landless agricultural labourer and that it had about 10 hectares of land in its name at the relevant time.
I have heard Sri P.N. Saxena, Senior Advocate, assisted by Sri Sanjeev Kumar Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Rajesh, learned Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents.
Sri Saxena has advanced two arguments in order to assail the impugned order passed by the Collector. First the petitioner is a 'person' and is therefore, eligible for allotment. Secondly, the provision of Section 15-A of the Act which was introduced by U.P. Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1975 cannot be applied retrospectively in respect of allotments made prior to it so as to cancel the allotment.
It is true that initially there was no provision under the Act authorizing any authority or the Collector to cancel any grant made under the Act. However, later on it came to the notice of the government that certain undeserving persons have obtained grant of lands under the Act either by misrepresentation or playing fraud or otherwise. Therefore, it was felt desirable to invest the Collector with the power to cancel the grants obtained/received by misrepresentation or fraud or where it is found that the grant has been made to ineligible persons. Thus, Section 15-A of the Act was introduced by U.P. Act 10 of 1975 w.e.f. 21.1.75.
15-A. Cancellation of certain grants-(1) The Collector may of his own motion and shall on the report of the committee or on the application of any person aggrieved by the grant of any land made under Section 14, whether before or after the commencement of the Uttar Pradesh Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1975, inquire into such grant, and if he is satisfied that the grant was irregular or was obtained by the grantee by misrepresentation or fraud, he may-
(i) cancel the grant, and on such cancellation, notwithstanding anything contained in Section 14 or in any other law for the time being in force, the rights, title and interest of the grantee or any person claiming through him in such land shall cease, and the land shall revert to the committee; and
(ii) direct delivery of possession of such land to the committee after ejectment of every person holding or retaining possession thereof, and may for that purpose use or cause to be used such force as may be necessary.
(2) Notice of every proceeding under sub-section (1) shall be given to the committee, and any representation made by the committee in relation thereto shall be taken into consideration by the Collector.
(3) No order shall be passed under sub-section (1) except after giving an opportunity of being heard to the grantee or any person known to the Collector to be claiming under him.
(4) The order of the Collector passed under sub-section (1) shall be final and conclusive.
A plain reading of the aforesaid provision establishes that it is applicable to grant of land made under Section 14 of the Act whether before or after the commencement of U. P. Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1975. In view of the clear and unambiguous language of the aforesaid provision, Collector has been authorized to cancel the grant whether made earlier to the introduction of Section 15-A of the Act or subsequent to it.
Accordingly, Section 15-A of the Act is applicable even to the grants made prior to the enforcement of U.P. Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1975. In view of the aforesaid, I am of the opinion that Collector is vested with the power to cancel any grant made under Section 14 of the Act irrespective of the time when it was made.
Section 14 of the Act empowers the Bhoodan Yagna Committee for Uttar Pradesh, a body corporate having a perpetual succession (hereinafter referred as Committee) established and constituted under Sections 3 and 4 of the Act to grant lands vested in it to the "landless persons" now replaced by word "landless agricultural labourers" vide U.P. Act No.10 of 1975 with the approval of the State Government.
In Matoley Vs. State of U.P. and another 1986 ALJ 645 a Division Bench of this Court held that "in order to find whether a particular grant made in favour of a person under the provisions of Bhoodan Yagna Act is regular or not, the provisions of the Act as they stood at the time of making of the grant have to be looked into." The grant made to a person fulfilling conditions required at the relevant time, cannot be cancelled on account of introduction of new conditions in the Act subsequently.
The aforesaid decision has been followed by this court in the Case of Bhagwati Prasad and others Vs. Additional Collector 2003 (95) RD 278 and Ram Swarup Vs. Collector, Fatehpur and others 2003 (95) RD 320.
At the relevant time, committee was authorized to make grants in favour of "landless persons."
The primary question which falls for consideration therefore, is whether the petitioner as an Institution was a 'person' eligible for allotment of land under the Act.
Sri P.N. Saxena, learned counsel for the petitioner on the strength of the definition of the person contained in the General Clauses Act/ U.P. General Clauses Act and on the basis of illustrations of the U.P. Imposition of Land Holdings Act, 1953 and the U.P. Z.A. & L.R. Act, 1950 contended that the meaning of the 'person' has to be construed in a wider sense so as to include a juristic person and as such petitioner was entitle to receive grant under the Act.
The illustrations cited by the counsel for the petitioner to support his argument that the word 'person' in the Act refers to a legal person or that it include within its fold even a juristic person cannot be accepted as under different Acts different meanings have been assigned to the word 'person'. As for example The Citizenship Act, 1955 in Section 2(f) defines the 'person' so as not to include any company or association or body of individuals. Similarly according to Section 2(g) of the Representation of People Act, 1950 person does not include a body of persons. Therefore, the definition of a 'person' in one Act cannot be straight away applied to another Acts as it may carry a different meaning. Accordingly, the definition or the meaning assigned to the word 'person' either under the U.P. Imposition of Holdings Act, 1953 or under the U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act, 1950 cannot be imported and applied in context with the present Act.
The word 'person' has not been defined in the Act.
In general usage, a human being is a person which usually refers to a natural person.
According to Chambers 12th Century Discretionary person is an individual; a living soul; a human being.
Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Indian Edition) defines 'person' as a human being regarded as an individual.
Usually, the word 'person' canotes a natural person, a human being who has the capacity for rights and duties.
This is a narrower and a simple dictionary meaning of the word 'person.' Legally the word 'person' includes both a natural person and an artificial person that is an individual who is a citizen of India, a company, or a body of individuals and includes even the government departments, organizations established or constituted by government, local authority, cooperative societies or any other society under the Societies Registrations Act, a firm, a Hindu Undivided Family and every artificial judicial person.
Section 3(42) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 defines the 'person' in a wider legal sense and provides that person shall include any company or artificial, or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not.
A similar and identical definition of a person exists under Section 4(33) of the U.P. General Clauses Act, 1994.
Section 4-A(1) of the General Clauses Act provides that definitions given in Section 3 of the said Act shall apply to all Indian Laws unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context. In other words, the definitions contained in the General Clauses Act, 1897 are applicable generally unless a contrary intention or a different meaning in context thereto is provided in a particular enactment.
Similarly Section 4-A of the U.P. General Clauses Act provides that the definitions given in the said Act shall apply unless the context otherwise require.
In view of above provisions of the General Clauses Act, 1897 and U.P. General Clauses Act, 1994 though ordinarily the definitions contained in the aforesaid Acts would be applicable but where the Act which necessitates the interpretation provides a different meaning either specifically or impliedly the meaning so assigned in the Act shall be followed.
This court in the case of Yog Sansthan Vs. Collector, Moradabad and others 2002 (93) RD 13 in considering the meaning of the word 'person' for the purposes of allotment of land for housing sites under Section 122-C of the U.P.Z.A. & L.R., Act 1950 concluded that the definition of the 'person' given in U.P. General Clauses Act, 1904 cannot be applied as the word 'person' used in context refers only to a natural person.
Now before applying the definition of the 'person' contained in the above two Acts it is relevant and important to examine the context in which the word 'person' has been used in Section 14 of the Act.
Section 15 of the Act lays down that all grants shall be made as far as may be in accordance with the Bhoodan Yagna Scheme. Further Section 14 of the Act vest the committee with the power of making grants in accordance with the Bhoodan Yagna Scheme to landless person (now landless agricultural labourers). Thus grants/allotments of land under the Act are to be made only in accordance with Bhoodan Yagna Scheme to landless persons.
Bhoodan movement or the land donation movement is a voluntary land reform movement which was started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951. The movement was started in Pochampally village in Andhra Pradesh where Vedre Ramachandra Reddy was the first person to donate part of his land. The mission of the movement was to persuade wealthy land owners to voluntary give part of their land to lower caste persons. Acharya Vinoba Bhave walked across India on foot, to persuade landowners to give up a piece of their land. Later the emphasis was to persuade land owners/landlords to give some land to their poor and downtrodden neighbours. The movement was a part of a comprehensive bigger movement 'Sarvodaya' that is rise of all socio economic and political order. It was in the nature of a experiment towards social, economic and justice. So from the nature of the scheme of the Bhoodan Movement the emphasis was to get land in donation from rich landlords and to distribute it amongst the poor and downtrodden landless persons in order to establish a socio economic order.
In U.P. Bhoodan Yagna Samiti Vs. Braj Kishore 1988 RD 363 (SC) a similar controversy whether the grant made by the committee in favour of the respondents was in accordance with law had arisen before the Supreme Court. Their lordships of the Supreme Court by applying the principle that in interpreting the intention of the legislature the entire writing/document be read from beginning to end in drawing conclusion considered the entire Bhoodan Yagna scheme and came to the conclusion that the fundamental principal of the Bhoodan movement is that all children of the soil have an equal right over the mother earth, in the same way as those born of a mother have over her. The Apex Court quoting from 'Vinoba And His Mission, a book by Suresh Ram went on to say that the object of the Bhoodan Movement is to distribute land received in donation to those landless louberers who are versed in agriculture, want to take it, and have no other means of subsistence."
In short, the scheme of Bhoodan and the Act postulates distribution of land only to natural persons or human beings and not to any institution society or any other juristic person. The meaning to the word 'person' used therein has to be assigned as per the above purpose only. In the context the word 'person' has been used in the Act, makes the definition of the person given in the General Clauses Act impliedly in applicable. The word 'person' in the Act has been used in a narrower sense and not in its broader or legal sense. The use of the word 'person' in the legal sense would actually frustrate/the laudable object of the Act and would deprive the actual tillers from receiving land. Thus, by necessary implication in reference to the context of the Act the word 'person' is differently used and the definition as contained in the two General Clauses Act would not be applicable.
In view of above, I am of the opinion that the meaning of the word 'person' used in Section 14 of the Act has to be construed in a narrower sense in the context of the Bhoodan scheme which envisaged for giving land to the tillers of the soil excluding all juristic persons from its ambit.
Petitioner is not a natural 'person' and is not the tiller of the land versed in agriculture or dependent upon it.
In view of above, order of Collector dated 21.10.2011 apart from other grounds, rightly cancels the grant made to the petitioner in exercise of powers under Section 15 of the Act.
The writ petition as such lacks merit and is dismissed.
Order Date :- 02.2.2012 piyush