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Judgment
The direction of this Court was to the effect that "to deliver back the possession of the land in question to the Appellants". This direction pertains to a proceeding under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976. Under the Act, possession of the land, which can be taken of, is delineated in Section 10(3), which reads as follows:
Acquisition of vacant land in excess of ceiling limit.
(1) ....
(2) ....
The mandate of the Act is that the vacant land after declaration should vest in the State Government. Vacant land has been defined in Section 2(q), which reads as follows:
2(q) "vacant land" means land, not being land mainly used for the purpose of agriculture, in an urban agglomeration, but does not include,
(i) land on which construction of a building is not permissible under the building regulations in force in the area in which such land is situated;
(ii) in an area where there are building regulations, the land occupied by any building which has been constructed before, or is being constructed on, the appointed day with the approval of the appropriate authority and the land appurtenant to such building; and
(iii) in an area where there are no building regulations, the land occupied by any building which has been constructed before, or is being constructed on, the appointed day and the land appurtenant to such building:
Provided that where any person ordinarily keeps his cattle, other than for the purpose of dairy farming or for the purpose of breeding of live-stock, on any land situated in a village within an urban agglomeration (described as a village in the revenue records), then, so much extent of the land as has been ordinarily used for the keeping of such cattle immediately before the appointed day shall not be deemed to be vacant land for the purpose of this clause.
In the aforesaid definition of the vacant land, it has been specifically stated that the land where building are would not be vacant land.
The contention of the learned Counsel for the Petitioners is that the college has been permitted to function in a building on the land in question. That building has to be got vacated by the State Government from its tenant and possession thereof be delivered to the Petitioners.
It is the admitted case of the Petitioners that the college which is being run in the building was inducted as tenant by the Petitioners in the year 1972.
In view of the aforesaid, we feel that if at all possession of the land had been taken, that has to be returned back and it has to be returned to the Petitioners and to those who were in possession under the authority of the Petitioners. A tenant of a building would be a person in authority exercising on behalf of the Petitioners. In any proceedings under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976, it cannot be construed that possession of the land where buildings were there was also taken.
The case of the Respondent State is that possession was a paper possession and they will deliver the paper possession and no person,i.e Petitioners or their representative, was there, when the possession was taken.
In that view of the matter, whatever land could be vacant land under the definition of the land as contained in the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976, is required to be given possession of and the State counsel submits that since they took paper possession, they will hand over the paper possession reserving/saving their right to continue the proceeding as permitted by the order in question. The paper possession of vacant land will be handed over, as undertaken by the Respondent-State, within two weeks.
With the aforesaid observation, the contempt proceeding is disposed of.