- (1.) ):-
(2.) A ceiling on agricultural holdings was imposed in Maharashtra by the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 27 of 1961, which was brought into operation on January 26, 1962. The ceiling fixed by that Act (the Principal Act), was lowered and certain other amendments were made to that Act by Acts 21 of 1975, 47 of 1975 and 2 of 1976, The validity of these Acts was challenged in the Bombay High Court in a large group of over 2660 petitions. A Division Bench of the High Court sitting. at Nagpur repelled that challenge by a judgment dated August 13, 1976, in Vithalrao Udhaorao v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1977 Bom 99. The High Court held that the provisions of the aforesaid Acts were not open to challenge on the ground that they were inconsistent with or took away or abridged any of the rights conferred by Part III of the Constitution, since those Acts were placed in the Ninth Schedule by the Constitution 17th Amendment Act, 1964, and the Constitution 40th Amendment Act, 1976, and also because of promulgation of Emergency as a result of which, the rights under Arts. 14 and 19 of the Constitution could not be enforced. The High Court also repelled the challenge to the validity of Art. 31B itself by holding that far from damaging the basic structure of the Constitution, the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, which introduced Art. 31B into the Constitution, fortified that structure by subserving a fundamental constitutional purpose. Certain provisions of the Principal Act and of the Amending Acts, particularly the concept of 'family unit' were challenged before the High Court on the ground, inter alia, that they were outside the purview of Art. 31A. On an overall consideration of the movement of agrarian reforms, with particular reference to the relevant statistics in regard to Maharashtra, the High Court rejected that challenge too on the ground that those provisions formed a part of an integral scheme of agrarian reforms under which large agricultural holdings had to be reduced and the surplus land distributed amongst the landless and others. 2A. The appeals filed against the decision of the Bombay High Court were dismissed by this Court by a judgment D/- 27-1-1977 in Dattatraya Govind v. State of Maharashtra, (1977) 2 SCR 790 : (AIR 1977 SC 915). The only point urged in those appeals was that the Principal Act, as amended, was void being violative of the second proviso to Article 31A (1), in so far as it created an artificial 'family unit' and fixed the ceiling on the agricultural holdings of such family units. The argument was that the violation of the particular proviso deprived the impugned laws of the protection conferred by Article 31A. That argument was rejected by the Court on the view that even if the impugned provisions were violative of the second proviso, they would receive the protection of Art. 31B by reason of the inclusion of the Principal Act and the Amending Acts in the Ninth Schedule. The Court considered whether, in fact, the provisions of the impugned Acts were violative of the second proviso and held that it was entirely for the legislature to decide what policy to adopt for the purpose of restructuring the agrarian system and the Court could not assume the role of an economic adviser for pronouncing upon the wisdom of such policy. The second proviso to Article 31A (1) was therefore held not to have been contravened.
(3.) The judgment of this Court in the appeals aforesaid was delivered on January 27, 1977 while the proclamation of emergency was in operation. On the revocation of that proclamation, petitions were filed in this Court by the appellants praying for the review of the judgment in Dattatraya Govind on the ground that several contentions, which were otherwise open to them for assailing the constitutional validity of the impugned Acts, could not be made by reason of the emergency and that they should be permitted to make those contentions since the emergency was lifted. Fresh Writ Petitions were also filed in this Court in which those contentions were put forward. The Court having accepted the request for the review of the judgment in Dattatraya Govind, these matters have come before us for consideration of the other points involved in the appeals.;