M. L. JOSHI, J. - (1.) HEARD learned Counsel for the petitioner. The sole point which calls for our consideration is whether a sale of agricultural holding made by a member of the scheduled caste in contravention of provisions of sec. 42 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955, is void or voidable? Section 42, as it existed in the year 1960, is reproduced below: - "42 Sale or gift.- Except with the general of special permission of the State Government no Khatedar tenant shall have right to transfer by sale or gift his interest in the whole or a part of his holding to any person who at the date of such transfer is already in possession of land which together with the land so transferred will exceed 90 acres of unirrigated or thirty acres of irrigated land. Explanation: - If such land is partly irrigated and partly unirrigated, one acre of irrigated land shall, for calculating the are of land for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be equivalent to three acres of unirrigated land. Provided that no Khatedar tenant being a member of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe shall so transfer his interest in the whole or a part of his holding to any person who is not a member of a schedled caste or a scheduled tribe. "
(2.) FROM the perusal of the proviso to section 42 it is evident that the proviso puts a prohibition to the efffect that no Khatedar tenant being a mem-ber of scheduled caste or scheduled tribe shall transfer his interest in the whole or part of his holding to any person who is not a member of the scheduled caste or scheduled tribe. In the present case indisputably the sale was made by a scheduled caste member in favoue of a person who is neither a member of scheduled caste nor scheduled tribe. Mr. Mathur, learned counsel for the petitioner, urges that there is no penal consequences provided in the proviso, so the proviso is not of a mandatory character, but is merely directive, therefore, the sale is not void but voidable. It may be pointed out that the proviso is couched in negative form. As stated by Crawford: "prohibitive or negative words can rarely, if ever, be directory. And this is so, even though the statute provides no penalty for disobedience. " (See, Crawford: Statutory Construction, p. 523) We are fortified in our view by a decision of the Supreme Court in H Pentiah vs. Muddala Veeramallappa (1 ). In that case Subbarao J observed: "negative words are clearly prohibitory and are ordinarily used as a legislative device to make a statute imperative" The proviso to section 42 is also couched in relative form and in the light of the law discussed above in our define opinion it is of a mandatory character. We may also point out here that the law makers intended to put safeguard against the alienation by the scheduled caste or scheduled tribe members in favour of the persons who did not belong to that class, so 'he agricultural holding may not go from the hands of that class. The proviso is intended to safeguard the inter-est of the members of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe in regard to the holding of the agricultural land- So the legislative intendment also persuades us to think that the proviso is of a mandatory character. The sale in question is, therefore, in contravention of the proviso to section 42, which categorically forbids the sale by a member of the scheduled cast or scheduled tribe in favour of persons who are not members of that class. The sale in question is, therefore, forbidden by law within the meaning of section 23 of the Indian Contract Act. It is well settled that where a contract, which a party seeks to enforce, is expressly or by implication forbidden by any law, no court will lend its assistance to give it effect. In this connection we may refer to White man vs. Sadler (2); Dip Narain vs. Nageshar (3); Anderson vs. Daniel (4); Westby vs. Westby (5); Hormasji vs. Pestanji (6) and Munshi vs. C. Board (7) which land support to our view. In view of the above discussions we are definitely of the opinion that the contract of sale or a sale made by a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe persons in favour of persons not belonging to that class is void and not enforceable in law. The sale in question has, therefore, rightly held to be void by the Board of Revenue. We, therefore, see no force in the petition. It is dismissed summarily. . ;