Summary
The Supreme Court upheld the Collector's 1974 rescission of Portuguese-era 'Alvara' land grants in Dadra and Nagar Haveli for non-cultivation under Article 12 of the Organizacao Agraria (OA). The OA, as the special law, governed the grants; pleas based on the 1917 Law and a 1936 Decree were new and in any case untenable; waiver and acquiescence could not defeat a public-interest cultivation condition, mere delay did not amount to acquiescence, and the Collector's reasoned order was not mala fide. The High Court had rightly interfered in second appeal.
Issues
- What is the true nature of the rights in the land granted to the appellants, and which law governs them.
- Whether the High Court was justified, under Section 100 CPC, in reversing the concurrent findings of the courts below.
- Whether the rescission of the grants for non-cultivation under Article 12 of the OA was vitiated by waiver, acquiescence, delay, impossibility or condonation.
- Whether the Collector's order dated 30.04.1974 was mala fide, arbitrary or unsustainable in view of the Dadra and Nagar Haveli Land Reforms Regulation, 1971.
Provisions considered
- Article 12, Organizacao Agraria of Nagar Haveli (Government Regulation No. 985 of 1919)Held to be the operative, self-contained provision under which a grant is rescinded without compensation and without independent proceedings where cultivation conditions are not met; it prescribes no time limit and its conditions, being in public interest, could not be waived. (¶¶ 4.8, 27, 28, 29, 56, 57, 59)
- Article 146, Organizacao Agraria of Nagar Haveli (Government Regulation No. 985 of 1919)Allows recourse to the 1917 Law only for omissions in the OA; as there was no casus omissus, it did not import Article 307 of the 1917 Law. (¶¶ 11, 30)
- Articles 76 and 307, Decree No. 3602 of 1917 (Regimen for grants of lands of the State of India)Article 307's inspection and reporting procedure was confined to the 1917 Law's own provisions such as Article 76 and could not govern rescission under Article 12 of the OA; the special OA prevails over the general 1917 Law. (¶¶ 12, 26, 28, 29, 31)
- Articles 1 and 2, Decree No. 27:135 dated 20.10.1936Article 2 makes emphyteutic properties inalienable save for expropriation or rent default; inalienability restricts voluntary transfer and does not displace rescission for breach under Article 12 of the OA. (¶¶ 13, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37)
- Section 100, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908The bar on interfering with concurrent findings in second appeal is not absolute; interference is permitted where findings are perverse, based on no or inadmissible evidence or wrong inferences from proved facts, and the High Court's interference was justified. (¶¶ 40, 41, 42, 43, 46)
- Order XLI Rules 1, 2 and 27, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908Relied on for the rule that an appellate court does not entertain a new case outside the pleadings, save in the exceptional situations for additional evidence, none of which existed here. (¶¶ 20, 21)
- Section 57, Dadra and Nagar Haveli Land Reforms Regulation, 1971The saving clause preserves pending investigations, legal proceedings and remedies under repealed law; the Collector's proceedings, begun in 1969 and continued on the High Court's remand, were saved, so the Regulation did not invalidate the rescission. (¶¶ 82, 84, 85, 88)
- Section 6, General Clauses Act, 1897Cited for the effect of repeal: the repealed law is effaced except to the extent proceedings are saved. (¶ 83)
Held
- No relief can be granted on a case not founded in the pleadings; pleas based on the 1917 Law, Decree No. 27:135 and the repeal and saving provisions of the 1971 Regulation, raised for the first time before the Supreme Court without any justification, could not be entertained. (¶¶ 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 81)
- Even on merits, the OA, being a special law for agricultural concessions in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, governs the Alvara grants over the general 1917 Law, and Decree No. 27:135 did not displace Article 12, since inalienability concerns voluntary transfer while rescission is annulment for breach. (¶¶ 25, 29, 31, 36, 37, 38)
- The High Court in second appeal could interfere with concurrent findings that relied on extraneous considerations such as the Overseas Council decision, the testimony of one witness and mere official inaction; its exercise of jurisdiction under Section 100 CPC was not open to objection. (¶¶ 43, 44, 45, 46)
- Waiver requires intentional relinquishment of a known right and cannot be invoked to defeat statutory obligations grounded in public interest; grant of land for cultivation is a public-interest measure, so the Article 12 conditions could not be waived, and there is no estoppel against the Government in the exercise of sovereign or executive power. (¶¶ 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58)
- Mere delay or long inaction does not amount to acquiescence, which in any case was never pleaded at trial; Article 12 prescribes no time limit, and the appellants, as beneficiaries of the grants, suffered no prejudice from delay. (¶¶ 59, 60, 61, 62, 63)
- The Overseas Council of Lisbon decision did not hold that rescission was possible only within seven years of the grant; it permitted later rescission where conditions had not been fulfilled, and such foreign decisions have only persuasive value. (¶¶ 65, 66, 69, 70)
- The pleas of impossibility and condonation failed: they contradicted the appellants' own case of cultivation, the Collector had excluded lands found genuinely uncultivable, and there was no material showing any express condonation. (¶¶ 72, 73, 75)
- The Collector's reasoned order, which excluded cultivated and genuinely uncultivable lands and rescinded only lands left uncultivated despite being cultivable, showed no infirmity; given that the proceedings began in 1969, it could not be inferred that it was passed mala fide to defeat benefits under the 1971 Regulation. (¶¶ 85, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94)
Result
Appeals dismissed; status quo order of 24.02.2006 vacated; no costs. Appellants not yet considered for occupancy rights under the 1971 Regulation given liberty to apply to the Collector within six weeks, to be decided notwithstanding limitation; NHAI's applications concerning acquisition disposed of with liberty.