Chhangani, J. - (1.) THESE five appeals raise inter alia a common important question of law and the learned counsel for the parties have desired that the question of law arising in these appeals may be decided in the first instance.
(2.) THE various appellants claimed to be grantees from the holder of the Masuda estate. THE Government of the former Ajmer State having issued a notification under Sec. 4 of the Ajmer Abolition of Intermediaries and Land Reforms Act (No. III of 1955) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) declaring that the estate of Masuda shall vest in the State Government, the various appellants claiming to be grantees and consequently intermediaries filed written statements of their claims before the Compensation Officer. THEse claims were ultimately considered by the Compensation Commissioner. Before him, the Collector Ajmer opposed the claims of all the appellants on the ground that the grants in their favour have not been recorded in the record of rights and there had been no mutation, in their favour. It was contended that under sec. 65 of the Act, entries in the record of rights should be considered conclusive proof of the status of a person claiming to be an intermediary and no evidence of any kind should be allowed and considered against the entries in the record of rights. THE Compensation Commissioner relying upon a judgment of the Judicial Commissioner, Ajmer, held that the entries in the record of rights are conclusive and irrefutable and the appellants cannot challenge their correctness. He, therefore, refused to go into the evidence led by the various appellants and dismissed their claims for compensation. THE appellants have filed the present appeals. The main question which is to be considered is whether the entries in the record of rights raise conclusive' presumptions and the appellants can have no right to lead any evidence to rebut those presumptions. For a proper determination of this question, it will be useful to quote sec. 20 and sec. 65 of the Act. Sec. 20 of the Act empowers the Compensation Commissioner to hold enquiries into the question arising in respect of any right, title or interest in the estate acquired under sec. 4 of the Act and to decide such questions himself and is worded as follows - "determination of question of title : - If during the course of an enquiry by the Compensation Officer or Commissioner, any question arises in respect of any right, title or interest in the estate acquired under sec. 4, and such question has been decided previously by a competent authority, the Compensation Commissioner shall, after holding such inquiry as he may deem fit, decide such question; provided that nothing in this section shall apply to any inquiry into any right, title or interest in respect of any property which is evacuee property within the meaning of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 (No. XXIX of 1950. " Sec. 65 relates to a presumption to be drawn from the entries in the record of rights and reads as follows : - "entries in record of rights conclusive: - Every entry in the record of rights shall for the purposes of this Act, be presumed to be correct : Provided that any modification or correction made in the record of rights, whether before or after the date of vesting under the provisions of the Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950 (XLII of 1950 ) or as a consequence of any decree or order of any court, shall be taken into account by the Compensation Officer. " I propose first to interpret sec. 65 of the Act on its own language and then to discuss the implications of the two sections together. It will be useful in this connection to refer to the Law of Evidence, sec 4. It mentions three kinds of presumptions indicated by three different expressions, 'may presume', 'shall presume' and a fact being conclusive proof of another. For our present purposes, the first kind of presumptions indicated by 'may presume' need not be discussed. In a case of 'shall presume', the principle is that the court shall treat such fact as proved unless and until it is disproved. 'shall presume' has thus been used in connection with and contemplates only rebuttable presumptions. However, when under the Evidence Act, a conclusive presumption is to be drawn the language used is that a particular fact is conclusive proof or another fact. The language has to be specific and free from any kind of ambiguity. For example, secs. 112 and 113 of the Evidence Act may be perused, Applying these principles in connection with the interpretation of sec. 65 of the Act, I find that in the main section there is complete absence of the language indicating that record of rights is conclusive proof of the status of a person claiming to be an intermediary The words used are, "the entries in the record of rights shall be presumed to be correct. " Appreciating the use of a passive voice, the language can be easily equated with a case of "shall presume" and in that view, it must be considered a case of rebuttable presumption. The Deputy Government Advocate, Mr. Gupta, however, has laid great emphasis on the marginal notes or the heading preceding the language of the section, which reads as "entries in the record of rights conclusive. " He invited my attention to Maxwell's Interpretation of Statutes, Tenth Edition, page 50 where it has been stated that the headings prefixed to sections or sets of sections in some modern statutes are regarded as preambles to those sections. They cannot control the plain words of the statute, but they may explain ambiguous words. Similar observations have also been made in Official Assignee of Bombay vs. Chimniram Motilal (1 ). There can be no quarrel with the above statement of law emphasizing the relevance of the headings in a case of ambiguous language of the section. However, this does not purport to modify the fundamental principle of interpretation that if the provisions of the statute are precise and unambiguous, then no more can be necessary than to expound those words in their ordinary sense. The words alone, in such cases, can best give intention of the law-giver. In other words, where, the language and the object of the section are not open to doubt, the pre-amble cannot either restrict or extend the enacting part. If the enacting part of the statute is not exactly in consonance with the pre-amble, the former will clearly over-ride the latter, as in the case of conflict bet-ween them, it is the section that governs. It is only when there is any ambiguity in the language of the section that the pre-amble can be invoked as an aid for a proper interpretation of the section. Applying these principles to sec. 65 of the Act, I have no doubt that the language of the section is quite clear and unambiguous and makes but a case only for a rebuttal presumption and, therefore, the heading portion being, on the interpretation of Mr. Gupta, in a little conflict with the section, it cannot prevail as against the section. In passing, I must also observe that the heading also does not use the words "conclusive proof" and it is quite possible to interpret the words "mere conclusive" to have been used only for the purpose of raising a rebuttable presumption. Approaching the matter from yet another point of view, it must be borne in mind that these conclusive presumptions are arbitrary inferences which the legislature wants the courts to draw from certain facts on grounds of public policy and they do shut out the parties from bringing on record important materials bearing upon the questions arising before the courts. Naturally, the enactments relied upon for such presumption should be very strictly construed and the courts should always struggle against any interpretation which may deprive the portion of their rights to land evidence, and bring any relevant and logical materials. On these considerations it will be quite fair and reasonable to interpret sec. 65 as creating only rebuttable presumptions.
(3.) A consideration of sec. 20 of the Act also lends considerable support to the above interpretation of sec. 65 of the Act. It empowers the Compensation Commissioner to entertain questions in respect of rights, title and interest in the estates of the intermediaries ; to hold inquiries and to record decisions. Obviously, inquiries of this nature must involve the collection of all relevant evidence and materials, their proper scrutiny and consideration and presuppose a competence of the inquiry officer to arrive at independent conclusions. There is nothing in the language of sec. 20 of the Act to suggest any restrictions on the powers of the Compensation Commissioner to hold inquiries in the manner indicated above. An acceptance of an interpretation of sec. 65 of the Act as raising conclusive presumptions is wholly inconsistent with independent inquiries by the Compensation Commissioner under sec. 20 of the Act, and should be avoided on the accepted principle of interpretation of reconciling various provisions and harmonising them. The Compensation Commissioner attempted to reconcile them by observing that sec. 65 of the Act laying a rule of evidence must be kept in view while determining questions of title under sec. 20. This, in my opinion is over-simplification and will make inquiries under sec. 20 a mere farce. , On a consideration of the elementary and fundamental ideas associated with inquiries as indicated above, I see no adequate justification to concur in the interpretation of these sections adopted by the Compensation Commissioner an,d to hold that the Compensation Commissioner in the exercise of his powers under sec. 20 is merely to record his decisions only on the basis of entries in the record of rights. The proper way of reconciling these two provisions, in my opinion, is to treat sec. 65 as creating rebuttable presumptions only and to hold that the Compensation Commissioner is competent to hold proper inquiries under sec. 20, and to reach independent conclusions, keeping of course in view the rebuttable presumptions arising from entries in the record of rights. The Deputy Government Advocate suggested that sec. 20 of the Act contemplates those cases where under the Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, the record of rights are not prepared and it is only in respect of these estates that the Compensation Commissioner has been authorised under sec. 20 of the Act to inquire into and decide questions of title. The language of sec. 20 of the Act does not permit of such a narrow interpretation and I have no hesitation in holding that it contemplates inquiries into all cases irrespective of the fact whether there exists or does not exist a record of rights. On a consideration of all these circumstances, the conclusion to which I come is that sec. 65 does not create conclusive presumptions and the Compensation Commissio-ner took a wrong view of law in holding that the appellants were not entitled to lead any evidence against entries in the record of rights. In this view of the law, the Compensation Commissioner clearly went wrong In disposing of these five appeals by reference to entries in the record of rights without examining the evidence and the materials on record brought at the instance of the appellants and his decisions cannot be allowed to stand. It will be hardly desirable for me to appraise and assess all those materials and record findings on questions of fact in these appeals without there being findings of the Compensation Commissioner. It will be proper to send these cases back to the Compensation Commissioner for fresh decisions after appraisement of the evidence and materials on record. I, therefore, accept these appeals, set aside the orders of the Compensation Commissioner and remand these cases for fresh decisions in the light of the above directions. . ;