K SENGA NAICKEN Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This was a suit by two inhabitants of Thidavoor, Athur taluq, Salem District, against the Secretary of State for a declaration that certain notifications and subsequent proceedings taken by the Government officials under the Land Acquisition Act are illegal and ultra vires. The plaintiffs are the owners of the property in question which was acquired for the purpose of forming a road by a Government notification, dated 14 September 1918. The learned District Munsif dismissed the suit. On appeal to the learned Judge the same result was reached. It appears that the cost of the road was defrayed by private contributions and that the Government added the sum of one anna from public revenue. When the second appeal first came on before Mr. Justice Viswanatha Sastri and myself, we found that a similar discussion as to whether the provisions of Section 6, Clause (1) had been complied with was under discussion in Ponnia V/s. Secretary of State A. I. R. 1926 Mad. 1099 before Spencer and Ramesam, JJ. We therefore deferred our decision on the question, but sent the case down for a finding as to how the contributions were deposited by the ryots in order that we might discover whether that money could be fairly termed public revenue or not. The learned District Judge, now Mr. Justice Wallace, in the lower appellate Court held that the compensation awarded was at the time of the award "public revenue" and that as soon as the public agency has applied the private funds for public purposes private ownership in these funds ceases and they become public revenues. The findings called for has now returned and it is to the effect that the, contributions were accepted as such by the Government and kept as separate deposit for the purpose of constructing the road. It therefore seems to me that the contributions cannot be said to be public funds as they were never merged in the general funds of the public.

(2.) However, that does not decide the matter. It is admitted that the Government contributed one anna to the cost and the question is whether this satisfies the requirement that the compensation was paid wholly or partly out of public revenues: (see Ex. II.) We have now the advantage of the judgment of Spencer and Ramesam, JJ., and they held that the condition in the section is not satisfied by the payment of one anna. The question is: Can this decision be accepted by us? The learned Judges seem to apprehend that if a small contribution were deemed to satisfy the section that it may be a mere devise for private persons to employ the Act for private ends or for the gratification of private spite or malice. I think it fair to assume that the Government by whom the acquisition has to be made would not knowingly or willingly lend itself to any such acquisition or employment of the Act, and in this particular case the Collector of Salem, in his proceedings dated 12 July 1916, Ex. A, found there was no objection to the construction of a road through this land provided the people concerned contributed the cost. Now the learned Judges in the case referred to held that the words "partly out of public revenues" were not satisfied by the contribution of a particle, for which they relied on the case of Chatterton V/s. Cave [1878] 3 A. C. 483. This case will have to be examined in some detail as the whole of the ratio decidendi of the learned Judges appear to rest on this and possibly on one other case which they cite at the end of their final judgment after a finding had been returned, namely, Luchmeswar Singh V/s. Chairman, Darbangha Municipality [1890] 18 Cal. 99. Chatterton V/s. Cave [1878] 3 A. C. 483 was a case of infringement of copyright where two plays had been separately adapted from a common source by the parties to the litigation. The matter was left to the Lord Chief Justice, Coleridge, and he found that the extent to which the one was taken from the other was so slight, and the effect on the total composition was so small, that there was no substantial and material taking of any one portion of the defendant's drama from any portion of the plaintiff s. It is there that the distinction between part and particle is made. Lord O Hagan, at page 497, says: No doubt, any scene or point or incident or line or word in a drama is a part of it; and no doubt it is the duty of a Court of construction to carry out the plain intentions of the Legislature strictly, even though it may not approve of them as sound in principle or wise in policy or just in operation. But we should scrutinize carefully the terms of a statute before we lend ourselves to administer it with ill results and see whether it forces us inevitably to produce them.

(3.) He then goes on to apply the same construction to the statute giving copyright in dramatic productions as those which afford protection to copyright in books and to hold that to render a writer liable for literary piracy he must be shown to have taken a material portion of the publication of another. He observes that the question in every case must be one of fact part is not necessarily the same as particle and there may be a taking so minute in its extent and so trifling in its nature as not to incur the statutable liability.