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JUDGMENT 1997 (1) SCR 1056 The Judgment of the Court was delivered by :

S.B. MAJMUDAR, J.: The appellants in this appeal by special leave have brought in challenge the order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad dismissing the writ petition moved by the appellants before that Court. The appellants had challenged an order dated 29th October 1976 passed by the second respondent, District Magistrate- cum-Competent Authority, Kanpur, requisitioning 777 sq. yards and 7- 1/3 sq. ft. of lands comprising of plot Nos. 36 and 36-A situated on The Mall, Kanpur in exercise of the powers of the second respondent under Section 23 of Defence and Internal Security of India Act, 1971 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'). The impugned order of second respondent merely mentioned that the said order of requisition was issued as it was necessary and expedient to requisition the property in question for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community. The appellants were called upon by the said order to deliver by 15th November 1976 possession of the said immovable property to the Director, Handlooms and Managing Director of U.P. State Handloom and Power-loom Finance and Development Corporation Ltd., Kanpur, U.P., respon-dent no. 3 herein. During the writ proceedings it transpired that the said requisition order was issued with a view to seeing that the concerned respondent-Corporation could construct shops and showrooms in the land in question for exhibiting its handloom products which were manufactured by handloom weavers. The appellants contended before the High Court that the aforesaid purpose of requisition was dehors the provisions of Section 23 of the Act. It was next submitted that as it was a permanent purpose power of requisition under the Act would not be invoked for fructifying the said purpose and in any case such a requisition order could not continue indefinitely and hence the continued enforcement of the said order resulted in unreasonable exercise of power on the part of the second respondent. The Division Bench of the High Court was not persuaded to accept the aforesaid contentions raised on behalf of the appellants and dismissed the writ petition. That is how the appellants are before us in this appeal.

(5) For the purposes of this section, "works" includes every description of buildings, structures and improvements of the property."

A conjoint reading of the aforesaid provisions indicates that the requisitioning of immovable property under the Act is with a view to cater to the emergent situations arising out of the currency of external and/or internal emergency fcr which the President of India might have issued relevant proclamations under the provisions of the Constitution of India. Obviously, therefore, the powers conferred on the authorities functioning under the Act are emergency powers. By their very nature they pertain to emergent situations of a temporary nature and not of a permanent nature. Under such emergent situations when power to requisition immovable property is to be exercised under Section 23 of the Act the Legislature in its wisdom has clearly indicated the limited sphere in which and purposes for which such power could be exercised. An order under Section 23(1) during such emergent situations can be passed - (a) either for securing defence of India; (b) civil defence; (c) public safety; (d) maintenance of public orders; (e) for efficient conduct of military purposes or for maintaining the supplies and services essential to the life of the community. In the context in which the power of requisition for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community is conferred by the Section leaves no room for doubt that an order in exercise of such power can be passed only under circumstances of grave urgency as contemplated by other similar types of orders which could be passed under this very Section. It must, therefore, be held that a competent authority exercising powers under Section 23(1) can requisition any immovable property for the purpose of main-taining supplies and services essential to the life of the community if it is found that but for such an order the community would be deprived of the concerned supplies and services essential for its life. It is per- tinent to note that the impugned requisition order only recites that the second respondent was of the opinion that it was necessary and ex-pedient to requisition the appellants' property, of which they were in possession for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community. By a mere reading of the said order it is difficult to find out as to what supplies and services were required to be maintained being essential for the life of the community which necessitated the passing of the said order. In the last paragraph of the order it is mentioned that possession of the said property was to be delivered by 15th November 1976 to Director, Handlooms and Managing Director of the U.P. State Handloom and Powerloom Finance and Development Corporation Ltd., Kanpur, U.P. The affidavit filed by respondent no. 3 before the High Court indicated that the said order was issued for the benefit of the third respondent- Corporation to enable it to run a hand-loom showroom, which purpose was considered expedient for maintain-ing essential supplies and service to the life of the community. In the counter affidavit filed in the present proceedings the third respondent has averred that the Corporation aims only to give commercial and material help and guidance to the poor weavers and to provide a ready market to them so as to protect them from unscrupulous middlemen. Paragraphs 6 and 7 of this counter deserve to be noted in extenso in this connection :

"6. I state that handloom cloth is manufactured by over 15 lakh poor weavers in the State, with the Government and on a small scale basis. The Corporation has the twin objective of providing jobs to the maximum number or rural poor since the manufacture of handloom clothes is a labour- oriented process and also to make cheap cloth available to the poor consumers. To this end the Corporation has extended loans to the weavers to the tune of Rs 80 lakhs and also supplied Yarn of the value of approx, Rs. 12 crores annually to them. The Corporation purchases the finished product to the tune of Rs. 30 crore annually which is sold through selling-cum- display shops and through exhibitions.

In the light of the aforesaid stand of the contesting respondents it becomes clear that the impugned order saw the light of the day because the third respondent-Corporation wanted to have a showroom for exhibit-ing the wares manufactured by weavers with a view to giving a fillip to the sales of these articles so that weavers working in rural areas could get an assured market for their goods. Shri Sibal, learned senior counsel for the appellants fairly stated that the said purpose may be treated as a public purpose but the question is whether for such a purpose emergency powers under Section 23 of the Act could be exercised. So far as this question is concerned, in our view, the impugned order cannot be supported under Section 23. If requisition order is said to have been justifiably issued by the second respondent for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community it must be shown that but for passing of such an order that community would be deprive of essential supplies and services and its very life would get adversely affected. Even if the third respondent-Cor-poration does not run any showroom for exhibiting handloom wares manufactured by rural weavers, all that may perhaps happen is that the weavers may not be able to get their goods easily sold in the market or may not have a good deal of customers. But that would not mean that com- munity or any part of it would be deprived of essential supplies and services. It cannot be urged with any emphasis that if the goods manufac- tured by rural weavers are not property marketed the community as a whole would be deprived of essential supplies and services. Without the use of such goods manufactured by rural weavers the community can comfortably exist and survive or in any case its existence would not come in any jeopardy. Reliance was placed by Shri Altaf Ahmed, learned Addi-tional Solicitor General, on a decision of this Court in the case of Parvej Aktar and Others v. Union of India and Others, [1993] 2 SCC 221. But the said decision is also of no help to him for the simple reason that this Court in the said decision had to consider entirely a different question as to whether the reservation of articles for exclusive production by handloom industry under the provisions of Handlooms (Reservation of Articles for Production) Act, 1985 was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. It was held that reservation of articles under the Act does not create any monopoly in favour of handloom industry. It was also observed that handloom industry is the biggest cottage industry in the country and is next only to agricultural sector in providing rural employment. The Act of 1985 was enacted for the protection of the interests of the handloom weavers, mostly concentrated in rural areas. They are pitted against a powerful sector, namely, the mills and the powerloom. As such, they face unequal competition. The protection has been given by the Government to handloom weavers because the livelihood of handloom weavers is threatened due to the production of all types of items and varieties by the powerloom industry. The handloom weavers are economically very poor and will have no alternative employment in the rural areas unless protected through reservation of varieties for them. The reservation or-ders are for the continued employment of the handloom industry and are in the larger public interest. The restrictions are not only reasonable but also fully justified. We fail to appreciate how the said decision can be pressed in service for supporting the impugned requisition order under Section 23 of the Act. Section 23 is not enacted for guaranteeing or providing any continuously lucrative market for the handloom wares manufactured by rural weavers. The impugned order has to be judged in the light of the express provisions of Section 23 and not dehors them. In the light of the stand taken by the respondents for justifying the impugned order, it has, therefore, to be held that however laudable the object may be, of seeing that the economic condition of rural weavers in handloom industry is improved, the said object for which a showroom has to be constructed on the lands in question would not justify the respondent-authority to invoke powers under Section 23 as the said object would fall short for the requirement envisaged by the said Section for exercise of such power. Provision for such showroom or its absence will have no impact on the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the com- munity as such. It is difficult to appreciate the reasoning adopted by the Division Bench of the High Court in the impugned judgment that these shops and showrooms are intended to be used by the State obviously for extending help to a particular class of small and cottage industry of U.P. involving poor weavers by protecting them from exploitation by middle traders and by marketing their products directly to the public through these shops and showrooms and therefore, establishment of such shops and showrooms had a nexus with the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the weaving community. Even assuming that weaving community is a part of the community as a whole in the absence of such showrooms the weaving community cannot be said to have been deprived of any essential supplies or services. Nothing was required to be supplied to them by having such a showroom. On the contrary the showroom was to enable the weaving community to supply their goods more effectively and lucratively to their customers being other part of the community. It must, therefore, be held that such an object underlying the impugned requisition order had no nexus with the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community and was totally dehors the provisions of Section 23. Consequently the impugned requisition order must be held to be ultra vires of Section 23, unauthorised and incompetent.