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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 698 of 1980.

From the Judgment dated the 2.5.1979 of the Kerala High Court in M.F.A. 346 of 1978.

M.M. Abdul Khader, Darshan Singh and Praveen Kumar for the Appellant.

P.S. Poti, P.K. Pillai (N.P.), T.T. Kunnhikannan and Ms. Malini Poduval for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by K. JAGANNATHA SHETTY, J. This appeal by leave from a Full Bench judgment of the Kerala High Court raises a short question of construction of the plain words of a term 'private forest' as defined in a statutory enactment called "The Kerala Private Forest (Vesting and Assignment) Act, 197 1 (called shortly "The Vesting Act"). The High Court has decided the question in favour of the State and against the appellant. The judgment of the High Court has since been reported in AIR 1980 Kerala 137. The view expressed by the High Court has been subsequently affirmed by another Full Bench in State of Kerala v. Malayalam Plantation Ltd., AIR 1981 Kerala 1 and reiterated by a larger Bench of five Judges in State of Kerala v.K.C. Moosa Haji & Ors., AIR 1984 Kerala 149, Losing the construction argument, the appellant has appealed to this Court.

The facts of the case are immaterial for the purpose of this judgment, save to state in the barest outline that the appellant is the Rayon Silk Manufacturing Company registered in the State of Madhya Pradesh. One of its industrial under- takings is located in Bilakootam, Mavoor in Kozhikode Dis- trict, Kerala State. This establishment pro-

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duces Rayon Grade Pulp, using Bamboo Eucalyptus and other species of wood as basic raw material. It has a large euca- lyptus plantation coveting thousands of acres, maintained as captive raw material for use in the factory. The State says that as a consequence of the Vesting Act, the eucalyptus 8plantation being a private forest and not excluded there- from is vested in the State with no fight, title and inter- est subsisting with the company. The claim of the company, however, is that the term 'private forest' as defined under the Vesting Act, excludes the eucalyptus plantation. 'Private forest' has been defined in the Vesting Act as well as under the Kerala Land Reforms Act (Act 1 of 1964) as amended by Amendment Act 35 of 1969 ("The KLR Act"). Since counsel for the appellant largely depends upon the judicial construction of the definition of 'private forest' in the KLR Act, it is necessary that we should set out hereunder both the definitions placed alongside with each other:

In Malankara Rubber and Produce Co. v. State of Kerala & Ors., [1973] 1 SCR 399, this Court while examining the scheme of KLR Act with particular reference to Chapter III therein observed that 'lands under eucalyptus or teak which are the result of agricultural operations normally would be agricultural lands, but not lands which are covered by eucalyptus or teak growing spontaneously as in a jungle or a forest.' This is the wider concept of agricultural crop, perhaps attributed to the latter part of sub-clause (iv) of the definition under Section 2(47) of the KLR Act. The latter part of sub-clause (iv) of Section 2(47) of the KLR Act, counsel for the appellant contended, is practically the same as the second limb of sub-clause (C) of Section 2(f)(1)(i) of the Vesting Act. It was claimed that since eucalyptus plantation is covered by the expression 'any other agricultural crop' in Section 2(47) sub-clause (iv) of the KLR Act, Section 2(f)(1)(i) sub-clause (C) of the Vest- ing Act with similar words must also carry the same meaning. It was emphasised that the KLR Act and the Vesting Act constitute a Code of agrarian reform and they are cognate legislations with the Vesting Act as supplementary to the KLR Act. The expression 'any other agricultural crop' used in both the enactments while defining 'private forest' must therefore, receive the same meaning as otherwise, it would lead to anomalies. This is the line of argument for the appellant.

Judicial interpretation given to the words defined in one statute does not afford a guide to construction of the same words in another statute unless the Statutes are pari materia legislations. In the present case, the aim and object of the two legislations are not similar in the first place. Secondly, the definition of 'private forest' in the KLR Act is not just the same as the definition of 'private forest' in the Vesting Act. Indeed, there is a vast differ- ence in between the two. The object of the Vesting Act was to provide for the Vesting in the Government of private forest in the State of Kerala for the assignment thereof to the agriculturists and agricultural labourers for cultivation. The preamble of the Act provides 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 in the State. Two separate definitions have been provided in the Vesting Act; the first is applicable to the Malabar district where the Madras Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 ('The MPPF Act') applied immediately before the appointed day; the second concerned is in relation to the remaining areas in the State of Kerala. The definition of 'private forest' as is applicable to the Malabar district is not general in terms but limited to the areas and lands to which the MPPF Act applied and exempts therefrom lands described under sub-clauses (A) to (D). This significant reference to MPPF Act in the definition of 'priVate forest' in the Vesting Act makes all the difference in the case. The MPPF Act was a special enactment. It was enacted by the erstwhile Madras State to preserve the private forests in the district of Malabar and erstwhile South Kannara District. The Scheme of that Act has been explained by several decisions of the Kerala High Court and that scheme appears to be that if the land is shown to be private forest on the date on which the MPPF Act,came into force, it would continue to be a forest, even if there was subsequent replantation. (See: State of Kerala v. Anglo American D.T.T. Co., [1980] Ker. L.T. 215 and State of Kerala v. K.C. Moosa Haji, (supra) (FB)-AIR 1984 Ker. 149 at 154-155.) It is not in dispute that the lands involved in this appeal were all forests as defined in the MPPF Act, 1949 and continued to be so when the Vesting Act came into force in 1971. In Malankara case (supra), this Court was not con- cerned with the lands covered by the MPPF Act, and denuded thereafter of forest growth and cultivated with fresh re- plantation. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to transplant the meaning accorded to 'private forest' from the KLR Act to the Vesting Act. That wide concept cannot fit into the new legal source.