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Contentions of the Appellants before the Writ Court:-

9. It was contended that the Act was enacted to prevent indiscriminate destruction of Private Forests and interference with customary and prescriptive rights therein and for certain other purposes and the said enactment will not apply to plantations as a plantations by its very nature is developed by contribution of human efforts, skill and money adopting agricultural and cultivation practice. It was contended that the sine qua non for application of the provisions of the Private Forests Act, is existence of a forest. It was submitted that Section 2(aa), which defines 'Forest' is an inclusive definition and Forest as such has not been defined and the Act could have no application to a land which is cultivated with rubber and other agricultural cash crops. The rubber extracted by tapping the rubber trees is an agricultural product and it is not a 'Forest' produce. That rubber trees never grows spontaneously in India and it requires regular and systematic cultivation. Referring to the definition of 'Forest' as defined under Section 2(aa) of the Private Forest Act, it was submitted that a word 'Forest' as understood in common parlance is a large uncultivated tract of land covered by trees and under wood and there is a great deal of difference between a forest and a plantation as understood by a layman. It is necessary to replant the old rubber trees after the rubber production declines due to age of the tree and regular tapping. It was submitted that before a notification is issued by the District Collector under Section 1(2) (iii) of the Act, it is a pre-requisite for the Government to issue a notification under Section 2(aa), if it intends to declare as 'Forest' any land other than a Forest as understood in common parlance for the purposes of the Act. It was submitted that a rubber plantation cannot be regarded as a waste or communal land or land analogous to a waste or communal land to fall within the definition of forest under Section 2(aa) of the Act. Therefore, a notification can be validly issued only if the lands satisfy the test mentioned in Section 2(aa) of the Act and therefore, the notification dated 31.07.1980, is ultra vires the provisions of the Act. It was further submitted that re-planting operations involving removal of old and uneconomical rubber trees is essential part of the operation being carried out in a rubber plantation, recognised by the Rubber Board, a statutory body constituted under the Rubber Act, 1947. The Board extends re-planting subsidy with a view to encourage the growers to replace old and uneconomic trees by planting high yielding variety of rubber plants. That, if the provisions of the Act are made applicable to a rubber plantation, replanting operations cannot be done without securing permission by observing the formalities as contemplated under the Act and the Rules framed thereunder and will hinder the agricultural activities. In terms of Section 3 of the Act, no portion of the Forest can be sold, mortgaged, leased or otherwise alienated without the previous sanction of a Committee constituted under the Act and any alienation without such permission is declared being null and void. Thus the restrictions cannot apply to a rubber plantation which requires regular agricultural operations such as removal of dead and will fallen trees, thinning of trees and even extracting rubber latex from the trees. Thus the restrictions imposed under the Act are clearly violative of Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India. The power granted to the District Collector is uncanalised and without guidelines. There is no enquiry contemplated before a notification is issued, no hearing is given to persons whose rights are adversely affected by such notification and the civil consequences arising therefrom. The impugned notifications issued under Section 1(2)(iii) of the Act are violative of the provisions of the Article 14 of the Constitution of India, as it discriminates between plantations as similar plantations situated in other Districts have not been notified as Forest. The land owners were not given any opportunity to putforth their case in respect of the proposal to treat their plantations as Forest for the purposes of the Act. On the above grounds, the provisions of the Act and the notifications were challenged.

12. The challenge to the impugned order is on the following grounds.

(i) Section 2(aa) of the Act defines 'Forest' and it is an inclusive definition and for a land to be declared as a 'Forest', a notification by State Government is provided and without such notification, a land cannot be declared as a 'Forest' under the provisions of the Act.
(ii) The Rubber plantations of the appellants wherein existence from 1930's and they are man-made plantations and cannot be declared as a 'Forest'.
(iii) During 1931, the appellants were granted ryotwari patta under the laws of erstwhile Travancore  Cochin and the lands being patta land cannot be classified as a 'Forest'. The lands owned by the appellants are patta lands and there is no material placed by the respondent to show that it is coming in between a forest area. Referring to the notification issued by the Collector, it is pointed out that the lands have been declared as 'punja' lands and cannot be classified as 'Forest'.

35. Pre-amble to the Vesting Act indicates that the private forest in State of Kerala are agricultural lands and the Government considered that such agricultural lands should be so utilised as to increase the agricultural production in the State and to promote the welfare of the agricultural population of the State. The statement of objects and reasons stated that the private forest as defined in Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963, were exempted from ceiling thereunder and that with high density of population, there was scarcity of lands and it was against the Directive Principles of State Policy to allow a few persons to be in ownership and control of these agricultural lands. Thus, the object of the Kerala Vesting Act was to distribute the private forest lands among the agriculturist and agricultural labourers for agriculture. Therefore, the Kerala Vesting Act was an ex-proprietary statute. The appellant, Bhavani Tea, approached the Tribunal constituted under Section 8 of the said Act for declaration that no portion of the lands comprised in particular survey numbers in a village was liable to vest in the State under the Kerala Vesting Act. The respondent -State of Kerala stated before the Tribunal that the plantation area in the schedule property had already been exempted and only such areas as fell within the definition of private Forest in the Vesting Act, mainly areas full of forest trees, aged 20 to 100 years were being surveyed and demarcated as vested forest. The State of Kerala also disputed the area under plantation and the area claimed to have been reserved for fuel and firewood etc. On the basis of the evidence available, the Tribunal held certain plots of land had been brought under cultivation prior to 14.12.1949 and therefore, did not fall within the purview of the Madras Preservation of Private Forest Act and were held to be outside the purview of the Kerala Vesting Act. Similarly other plots of lands, which were used principally for cultivation of tea, coffee, cardamom were excluded from the purview of the Vesting Act in view of the provision containing in Section 2(f) thereof. The remaining plots were found to be not excludable. Thus, the Tribunal allowed the company to retain a particular extent of the land and declared the remaining as vested forest under the Vesting Act. The order of the Tribunal was put to challenge both by the company and the State of Kerala before the High Court and the High Court partly allowed both the appeals. On a perusal of the judgment more particularly in paragraphs 10 & 11, it is seen that the High Court had examined the case with reference to each plot and the extent which would be covered or not covered by the provisions of the Vesting Act. Challenging the order passed by the High Court, the company, Bhavani Tea, and the State of Kerala filed Special Leave Petitions before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. While examining the statement of objects and reasons of the Kerala Vesting Act and the definition of Private Forest as defined thereunder, the Hon'ble Supreme Court pointed out that this aspect was examined in the case of State of Kerala vs. Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing (weaving) company Ltd , reported in (1973) 2 SCC 713, wherein it was observed that the Vesting Act purported to acquire Forest land without payment of compensation for implementing a scheme of agrarian reform by assigning lands or by way of lease to the poorer section of the agricultural population. It was observed that extensive areas of Private Forests were available in Malabar District, which could be acquired and distributed and that the Private Forest lands of Malabar District were contiguous and formed one long belt of Mountainous terrain, now forming part of State of Kerala. It was observed that plantations of tea, coffee, rubber etc., were grown on extensive scale in these forests and industries had taken leases of vast areas of these forest for those purposes. Thus, as pointed out by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the Kerala Vesting Act was in effect an Act purported to acquire forest land without payment of compensation.

36. In paragraph 18 of the judgment in Bhavani Tea, reference has been made to the Madras Preservation of Private Forest Act, 1949 and the definition of Forest as defined under Section 2(a) has been noted. The other enactments such as the Kerala Forest Act, 1961, the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963, were referred to and the Hon'ble Supreme Court proceeded to take note of the definition of Private Forest as defined under Section 2(f) of the Kerala Vesting Act. In paragraph 33 of the Judgment, the Hon'ble Supreme Court pointed out that if the land was shown to be a Private Forest, on the date on which the Madras Preservation of Private Forest Act came into force (1949), it would continue to be a Forest, even if there was subsequent replantation. In para 34, it was pointed out that the reverse question was involved in the case, namely, if the land was not private forest, but plantation under the 1949 Act and was similarly not private forest, but plantation on 10.05.1971, it could not, without anything more, become forest, thereafter even though it was not under the same efficient or successful plantation as it was earlier. Considering the argument on behalf of the company that plantations did not constitute private forest either under the Madras Preservation of Private Forest Act or under the Kerala Land Reforms Act and the companies plantations could not have come within the purview of the Vesting Act, it was observed that it cannot be said that there could never be a case of such plantation land being converted to a forest by natural growth or otherwise and it must necessarily depend on facts.