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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-

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:

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.

"It is therefore, manifest that when the legislature stated in the preamble that the private forests are agricultural lands, they merely wanted to convey that they are lands which by and large could be prudently and profitably ex- ploited for agricultural purposes."

There is thus a judicial recognition of the distinction between private forest in Travancore-Cochin area in Kerala State and the private forest in Malabar district. This distinction by itself is sufficient to dispel the anomalies suggested by counsel for the appellant. Look at the definition. Sub-clause (A) refers to gardens or nilams as defined in the KLR Act. 'Garden' means lands used principally for growing coconut trees, arecanut trees or pepper vines or any two or more of the same. 'Nilam' means lands adapted for the cultivation of paddy. Sub-clause (B) deals with what may be called plantation crops, cultiva- tion of which in the general sense would be cultivation of agricultural crops. Such agricultural crops are by name specified. Lands used for any purpose ancillary to such cultivation or for preparation of the same for the market are also included thereunder. Next follows sub-clause (C). It first refers to lands which are principally cultivated with cashew or other fruit-bearing trees. It thus refers to only the fruit beating trees. It next refers to 'lands which are principally cultivated with any other agricultural crop. If the legislature had intended to use the term 'agricultur- al crop' in a wide sense so as to take within its fold all species of trees fruit-beating or otherwise, it would be unnecessary to have the first limb denoting only the cashew or other fruit-beating trees. It may be significant to note that the Legislature in each sub-clause (A) to (C) has used the words to identify the different categories of crops or trees. The words used in every sub-clause too have "associa- tions, echoes and overtones". While construing such words, judges must, as Felix Frankfurter, J., said "retain the associations, hear the echoes and capture the overtones"