SAYED REHMANMIYA MUSTAFAMIYA & OTHERS v. THE STATE OF GUJARAT & OTHERS
Citation: [1970] 3 S.C.R. 293; 1969 INSC 332
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: VISHISHTHA BHARGAVA , K.S. HEGDE
Judgment date:
Case summary
1969 INSC 332. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1969-12-02. SAYED REHMANMIYA MUSTAFAMIYA & OTHERS v. THE STATE OF GUJARAT & OTHERS. Read the judgment...
Judgment text
- A B c 0 E F G 293 SAYED REHMANMIYA MUSTAFAMIYA & OTHERS v. THE STATE OF GUJARAT & OTHERS December 2, 1969 [V. BHARGAVA AND K. S. HEGDE, J J . ] Ho111hay lt11td R£'l'et111e ('ode (Act V of 1879) s. 52 Chaps. VIII and VIII-A and Sa11rashtrt1 Barkha! i Aholitio11 Acl (16 of J95l) s. 19-Scope of. Ordinance XXV of J 948, issued by the Raj Pran1ukh of the then St ettk- ment of a village. In our opinion. therefore, under s. 19 of the Act, the assessment made by the Mamlatdar under that section itself must continue in force until there is a survey and settlement in accordance with Chapters VIII and VIIT-A of the Code. In this connection, we may take notice of one more aspect. Even under s. 52 of the Code and Rule 17 of the Rules made thereunder, there is, in fact, no survey at all. All that Rule I 7 requires the Collector to do is to classify land into three classes: (I) dry crop, (2) rice and (3) irrigated.
These three classc' are then to be divided into three sub-classes, good, medium and inferior. Assessment is then to be made on each parcel of land by comparison of. similar class and sub-class of land with land of the same class and sub-class situated in the Bombay urea apart from areas transferred to Bombay State at the time of Reorgani- sation of the States in 1956. This procedure doos not invok~ any survev. Survey, as indiCated bv Chapter III-A of the Land Revenue Rules framed under the Code, requires the settlement ofticer to examine physical configuration, climate _and rain-fall. . 300 SUPREME COURT REPORTS ( 1970}3 S. C. R . markets, communications, standard of husbandry, population and supply of labour, agricultural resources, the vanati! Jns in the area of occupied and cultivated . lands during the period of previous settlement, wages, prices, yield of the principal crop, ordinary expenses of cultivating each crop, and rental values of lands used for purposes of agriculture ..
No such survey of any of these factors was required to be done by the Collector when making the assessment of land revenue payable under s. 52 of the COde read with Rule 17. In fact; the provisions of Rule 17 require very limited action by the Collector in classifying lands and comparing lands to be assessed with lands in untransferred area of the Bombay State. Fixing of land revenue payable, on this principle, is also clearly exercise of a sumi'nary power which appears to have heen conferred on the Collector by ~- 52 as a temporary measure until there could be a proper settlement of land revenue after survey in accordance with Chapters VIII and VIII-A of the Code. If such assessment made by the Collector by a more or less sum- mary procedure were in<endccl to he given effect to by the Legis- lature in the Act, there W<L~ no need at all to create another authority in the Mamlatdar to fix assessment by a slightly different summary procedure.
It seems to us tltat the Saurashtra Legisla- ture, in passing the Act, for the temporary period until there could be a regular survey and ~ettlement, created a :machinery by granting power to the Mamlatdai to make a summary assess- ment. and that was clearly intended not to be superseded by an- other summary fixation of assessment by the Collector under s. 52 of the Code. The High Court has held that, in substance and in effeet, the Collector, in acting under s. 52 of the COde and Rule 17, did make the assessment after survey and settlement. Nowhere did the High Court examine whether any of the steps which are taken in a survey were required to be taken by the Collector at all. The High Court seems to have assumed that the procedure laid dcmn in Rule 17 amounted to survey and settlement. Further, the High Court lost sight of the fact that, under s. 52 of the Code A B c D E F· and Rule 17, the assessment of land revenue payable was in · G respect of lands, while s.
19 of the Act envisaged survey and settle- ment not of individual lands but of a village. We are, therefore. unable to agree with the view of the High Court that what the Collector did in 1959 in making the assessment under s. 52 of the Code and Rule 17 amounted to· survey and settlement of villages as envisaged in s. 19 of the Act. There having been no survey and settlement of the village, the assessment ma~e by the Mamlatdar continued to be assessment for purposes of the Act and the Oovemment was, therefore, not justified in varying H A B REHMANMIYA V. GUJARAT (Bhargava, I. ) :;o I the payment of annuity under -s. 18 of the Act which should have· been continued to be paid in accordance with that assessment. The appeals are, consequently, allowed with costs. in both Courts and the orders of the High Court are set aside.
As prayed by the appellants in their writ petitions, writs of mandamus shall issue to the Government to pay cash annuity to the appel- lants on the basis of the assessments made by the Mamlatdar under s. 19 of the Act and not in accordance with the assessments made· by the Collector under s. 52 of the Code read with Rule 17 of the Rules framed thereunder. V. P,S. Appeals al/011·ed_
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