- (1.) DOHAR Singh held 88.99 acres of unirrigated land. He sold 21.50 acres to Chandra Shakhar by a registered sale-deed dated April 17, 1972. In the proceedings under the M.P. Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960 (the Act) the competent authority declared the sale to be void by order dated January 8, 1975. Chandra Shakhar preferred an appeal which was dismissed by the Board of Revenue on February 23, 1978. He challenged the orders of the authorities under the Act by way of a writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India which was allowed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the orders of the competent authority and the Board of Revenue were set aside. The sale in dispute was declared to be valid. This appeal by way of special leave is by the State of Madhya Pradesh against the judgment of the High Court
(2.) SUB -sections 1 and 4 of Section 4 of the Act which are relevant are as under "(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, where after, the 1st January, 1971, but before the appointed day, any holder has transferred any land held by him by way of sale, gift, exchange or otherwise or has effected a partition of his holding or part thereof or the holding held by the holder has been transferred in execution of a decree of any Court, the Competent Authority may, after notice to the holder and other persons affected by such transfer or partition and after such enquiry as it thinks fit to make, declare the transfer or partition to be void, if it finds that the transfer or the partition, as the case may be, was made in anticipation of or to defeat the provisions of this Act (2) * * * (3) * * * (4) In regard to every transfer to which this section applies, the burden of proving that the transfer was not benami or was not made in any other manner to defeat the provisions of this Act shall be on the transferor." The object and the purpose of the Act is to provide ceiling on the agricultural holdings, acquisition of surplus land and its disposal. Provisions of Section 4 of the Act are a check on the transfers and the partitions which are made with a view to circumvent and defeat the provisions of the Act
(3.) THE High Court on the interpretation of Section 4(4) held as under (a) The word "benami" in sub-section (4) of Section 4 of the Act refers to the transfers which are sham, fictitious, nominal or bogus (b) The burden to be discharged under Section 4(4) of the Act is a negative burden and as such less degree of proof than is usually required is warranted. Such evidence as renders existence of negative probable, changes the burden to the other party (c) Following four elements are mandatory to void a transfer under Section 4(4) - "(i) there must be a transfer by way of sale, gift, exchange or otherwise; (ii) that the impugned transfer must have taken place during the period specified under Section 4(4); (iii) it must have been made in anticipation of the Act, having the effect of defeating any of the provisions of the Act; (iv) that the impugned transfer is 'benami' i.e. sham, fictitious, nominal or bogus." ;