Ayyangar, J. - (1.)These two appeals are by special leave of this Court and arise out of orders of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh dismissing two writ petitions filed before it by the respective appellants in the two appeals.
(2.)On January 14, 1953, the Government of Madras issued a notification reading, to quote only the material words, "in exercise of the powers conferred by S. 1 (4) of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act 1948 (Madras Act XXVI of 1948) read with S 2 of the Madras Scheduled Areas Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Regulation, 1951: The Governor of Madras hereby appoints the 4th of February 1953, as the date on which the provisions of the said Act..... shall come into force in the Estates in the Scheduled Areas of the West Godavari District which are specified in the schedule below:-" and the schedule set out inter alia:
"1 Agency Area of Gangole 'A' Estate, consisting of........ 2 **********

3. Agency Area of Gangole 'C' Estate, consisting of .............

" It is the legality of this notification that is impugned by the two appellants who are the proprietors respectively of Gangole 'A' and Ganlgole 'C' estates. The two writ petitions by the appellants which were numbered respectively 28 and 29 of 1953 were dismissed by the learned Single Judge of the Andhra High Court and appeals under the Letters Patent filed against this common judgment were also dismissed by the learned Judges of that Court. An application for the grant of a certificate was also dismissed but this Court having granted special leave to the appellants, the matter is now before us.

(3.)The Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, to which we shall refer as the Abolition Act was a piece of legislation of the State enacted to effect reform in land tenures and land-holding by the elimination of intermediaries. In line, with similar legislation in the rest of the country, the interests of intermediaries - of three categories - the estates of Zamindars, of undertenure-holders and of Inamdars were enabled to be vested in Government on the publication of a notification to that effect, compensation being provided for such taking over. The entire legal difficulties in the case of the Gangole 'A and 'C' estates which were admittedly Zamindaris arise out of the fact that a small portion of each of them is situated in what is known as the Godavari Agency tract. This Agency area was originally included as part of the Scheduled District of the Madras Presidency under the Scheduled Districts Act XIV of 1874.