AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Khalid, J.—The Petitioner in the Civil Revision Petition and the Original Petition is the same. He is the Prior of St. Antoney''s Monastery, Alwaye. The challenge in the writ petition is against the validity of Section 85(9) of the Kerala Land Reforms Act (for short, the Act) which confers wide powers on the Taluk Land Boards to reopen cases already decided and to quash Ext. P-4 order of the Taluk Land Board. This challenge is now purely academic since a Division Bench of this Court, to which I was a party, has upheld the validity of this section. Ext. P-4, for this reason is valid and cannot be called in question on the ground.
The Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order of the Taluk Land Board, Alwaye, by which the Petitioner was directed to surrender 22.46.395 acres of land, while the earlier order had exempted his Monastery from the provisions of the Act. This was done u/s 85(9) of the Act.
The Petitioner''s case is that the Monastery that he represents is a religious charitable institution of a public nature and as such is exempted from the ceiling provisions u/s 81 of the Act. After the case was reopened, the Taluk Land Board wanted to look into the accounts of the Monastery to find out whether the Petitioner satisfied the proviso to Section 81(1)(t) which read as "provided that the entire income of such lands is appropriated for the University, institution or trust concerned". The Petitioner did not comply with the request and did not supply the necessary materials, but contended that the notice was bad since the Monastery was protected by Section 98A of the Act.
In my view this submission has to succeed. I quote Section 98A and Section 83 of the Act.
98A. Interpretation.--For the purpose of this Chapter, the term "person" shall not include a co-operative society or an institution of a public nature for religious and charitable purposes established and maintained by a religious denomination or any section thereof or the Board of Trustees for the Improvement of the City of Trivendrum constituted u/s 3 of the Trivandrum City Improvement Trust Act, 1960.
No person to hold land in excess of the ceiling area.--With effect from such date as may be notified by the Government in the Gazette-no person shall be entitled to own or hold or to possess under a mortgage lands in the aggregate in excess of the ceiling are.
This section prohibits a person from owning or holding properties in the aggregate in excess of the ceiling area. Section 98A quoted above excludes an institution of a public nature as described therein from the purview of the term ''person'' which means that such a body does not come within the mischief of Section 83.
It cannot be now contended by the State that the Petitioner is not a public religious institution. Ext. P-1 in O.P. No. 1096 of 1979 proceeds on the footing that the Petitioner''s Monastery is a public institution of religious nature. Ext. P-1 called upon the Petitioner to satisfy the Board whether the entire income was being appropriated by the instruction for its purposes as is contemplated by the proviso to Section 81(1)(t). The Petitioner was justified in law in not complying with the notice for the reason that the ceiling provisions could apply only to a person, while u/s 98A an institution of this nature was not a person. A similar submission found acceptance at the hands of this Court in two judgments, one in C.R.P. No. 1794 of 1976 and the other in C.R.P. No. 5365 of 1976, the earlier rendered by Bhaskaran, J., and the second by M.P. Menon, J. I am in respectful agreement with the above judgments. I hold that the Taluk Land Board''s approach to the question of law involved was not correct. I set aside the order of the Taluk Land Board and hold that the Petitioner-monastery is a religious and charitable institution of a public nature and is exempt from the provisions of the ceiling area as it is not a person. The direction to surrender land is vacated. The Civil Revision Petition is allowed. I direct the parties to bear their costs.