Purushothaman Nambudiri vs The State Of Kerala on 5 December, 1961
(a) that the expression 'estates' "shall have the
same meaning as that expression has in the
existing law relating to land tenures enforce in
the area" could be read as permitting the
exclusion from the definition of interests which
were defined in such a law as 'estates' on the
ground that such interests were not those of an
intermediary. This Court held that full effect had
to be given to these words and that the definition
of an 'estate' in a pre-Constitution law relating
to land-tenures must determine the content of that
expression. It would be seen that the result would
have been the same whether the case arose before
or after the Fourth Amendment. The decision in
Atma Ram v. The State of Punjab (2) proceeds on an
identical basis and turned on the definition of an
'estate' in the Punjab Revenue Act 17 of 1887. In
this, as in the earlier case in relation to the
Bombay Land Revenue Code, there could be no
dispute that the enactment was a law in relation
to land-tenure. The only question therefore was
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whether full effect could or ought to be given to
the words of the definition, and this was answered
in the affirmative. In my opinion, the learned
Attorney-General cannot derive any assistance from
either of these decisions.