Rama Verma Bharathan Thampuran Vs.
State of Kerala & Ors [1979] INSC 133 (30 July 1979)
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
DESAI, D.A.
KOSHAL, A.D.
CITATION: 1979 AIR 1918 1980 SCR (2) 136 1979
SCC (4) 782
ACT:
Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the
Palace (Partition) and the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition)
Amendment Act, 1978 (Act 15 of 1978), constitutional validity of.
HEADNOTE:
The Maharaja of Cochin, reigned and ruled
over a pretty State, Cochin, which is now an integral part of the Kerala State.
The Travancore-Cochin State came into being on July 1, 1949. Two days before
this constitutional merger, the Maharaja of Cochin issued a Proclamation to
provide for the impartibility, administration and preservation of the Royal Estate
and the Palace Fund through a Five-man Board of Trustees. A small Process of
family legislation on the Cochin Palace followed the political transformation
of the State. The first was the Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the
Palace Fund (Partition) Act, 1961 (Act 16 of 1961), the primary purpose of
which was to undo the impartibility of the Royal Estate, as declared by the
Proclamation of 1949. Sections 4 and 5 of the Act prescribed the shares of the
members, the mode of division and the machinery for partition under these
provisions, on a majority of the major members of the royal family expressing
their wish to be divided, the Maharaja would consider whether it was in the
interest of the family to partition the estate among the members and, if he did,
direct the Board of Trustees to proceed with the partition under his
supervision and control. Each member including en ventra sa mere, was eligible
for a single share on an equal basis. The Board nominated under the earlier
Proclamation was continued but its responsibilities were broadened. The
privileges of the Maharaja were preserved as his personal rights but vis-a-vis
family assets feudal "primogeniture" fell to modern egalite, within
limits. As a result of the 26th Constitution Amendment Act of 1971 which
extinguished all royal privileges, privy purses and other dignities of the
erstwhile rulers of the Indian States, the Cochin Maharaja stepped down to the
level of the Karta of a Joint Hindu Family. The Marummakkattayam system which
ensured impartibility and management by the senior most member had lost its
functional value and virtually vanished from the Kerala coast with the passing
of the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975 (Act 30 of 1976).
Despite this revolutionary change, the Cochin
royal family maintained its former status as Marummakkattayam undivided
coparcenary since it was governed by special legislation which remained
unrepealed. Therefore, the Kerala Legislation enacted the Valiamma Thampuram
Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) and the Kerala Joint Hindu
Family System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1978 (Act 15 of 1978).
Before the High Court and in the special
leave petition, the vires of the Amending Act omitting sections 4 and 5 from
the Principal Act 16/1961 was challenged as offending Articles 14 and 19 of the
Constitution.
Dismissing the special leave petition, the
Court, 137
HELD: The public policy behind Section 7 of
the Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) Act,
1961, excluding civil court jurisdiction is not merely the special situation of
the former royal family but the virtual impossibility within a life-time of
division by metes and bounds and allotment of shares to the 800 odd members,
most of whom are real royalties in rags, homeless and hungry, seeking to
survive by the small pieces from the large cake if ever it will be sliced and
distributed. [141A- B] Civil litigation for partition is the surest punishment
to the tattered 'princelings' by pauperizing them through the justice process
and giving them stones instead of bread in the end, if the end would arrive at
all. The compulsive pragmatics of distributive justice elicited legislative
compassion for this uniquely numerous crowd of pauperised patricians by exclusion
of civil courts jurisdiction. The pathology of protracted, exotic processual
legalistic needs comprehensive renovation if the Justice System is to survive
but the legislature salvaged the largest royal family with the littlest
individual resources without waiting for the remote undertaking to overhaul
Processual Justice to the People. Sociology is the mother of law, lest law in
the books should be bastardized by the law of life. [141D-F]
2. Our constitutional order is sensibly and
sensitively allergic to arbitrary power and the Supreme Court will
unhesitatingly strike down any provision which can be anathematised as creating
uncanalised and Neronised power.
Section 4 of the Principal Act of 1961
provided for an equal opportunity for every member including those en ventre sa
mere. This provision was deleted because its purpose was otherwise served by
the substituted Section 3 of Act 16 of 1961 by including a direction to the
Board "to effect partition of the Estate and the Palace Fund among all the
members entitled to a share"..................under Section 4 of the
Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975 (Act 30 of 1976)."
The effect of the importation of Section 4 of the Abolition Act is to ensure
partition per capita among all the members as in the case of a Joint Hindu
Family other than an undivided mitakshara Hindu family. What was otiose,
namely, Section 4 of Act 16 of 1961 was cut out. This was merely a drafting
operation not making any change in the substantive law bearing upon the shares
of the members. The contention that by this deletion the members of the
Kovilagam had been made over as hostages to the caprice of the Board of
Trustees is a frightful error or disingenuous scare. [142-F-G, 143H, 144A-B]
3. Section 5 of the 1961 Act arrogated to the
Maharaja of Cochin the power to exclude any properties from the category of
partible estate. If most members were to be indigent, the infliction upon such
members by the Maharaja's act of exclusion of as many properties as he thought should
not be divided would be unjust. Since every member was entitled to an equal
share with the Maharaja himself all the properties should be available for
partition and this result, which is eminently just, is achieved by the omission
of Section 5 from Act 16 of 1961. Therefore, the provision in Act 15 of 1978
omitting Section 5 from the principal Act is a virtue to be commended, not a
vice to be condemned. It is eminently reasonable and to contend against it is
obviously unreasonable. [143D-F]
4. To blaspheme the Board as an imperium in
imperio, a law unto itself and therefore, arbitrary is an egregious error. The
Board was not a new creation 138 but an old concoction brought into being by
the Ruler thirty years ago, continued by the Kerala Legislature in Act 16 of
1961 and recognised by the latest amendment Act. The Board is a time honoured
entity wherein the heads of the four branches are members and is entrusted with
the work of division of assets. The Board, being an old institution in plenary
management since 1949 and wisely composed of senior- most members of the four
branches, is sentimentally and functionally the best instrument to divide and
distribute.
Indeed Act 16 of 1961 had also entrusted the
task of partition to the same Board and no member had during nearly two decades
challenged the wisdom of the provision. [144B-D] Section 3 of the Act 15 of
1978 does not dispense with canons of fair play of natural justice and of
quasi-judicial values. A non-curial instrumentality and procedure for partitioning
cannot be condemned as discriminatory. The alternative created by the statute
is quite reasonable and is a better instrument having regard to the totality of
factors. Law is not a cocoon and keeps its eyes wide awake to the realities of
life. The legislation in question has taken note of all facts namely; (a)
absence of any complaint against their management ever since the Board's
creation;
(b) sanctification of the Board by the
principal Act 16 of 1961 by conferring powers of partitioning the "Kovilagam"
properties on this very Board; and does nothing more What was good and valid in
1961 could not become vicious and invalid in 1978. [145 B-D, E] Quasi-judicial
responsibilities are implied by the statute in the Board's function and if the
Board breaches these norms and canons, the constitutional remedy under Article
226 comes into play. After all, the Board is a statutory body and not an
executive creature. It has been saddled with effecting the rights of parties
and is bound to act quasi-judicially. Its deviances are not unreviewable in
writ jurisdiction. Sufficient guidelines are built in Section 3 and therefore
Section 3 (2) is not unbridled and unconstitutional. [145F-G. 146E] Maneka
Gandhi v. Union of India, [1976] Suppl. S.C.R.
489; M. S. Gill and Anr. v. Union of India,
[1978] 2 S.C.R.
621, Organo Chemical Industries and Anr. v.
Union of India & Anr., [1980] 1 S.C.R. p. 61 referred to.
5. Absence of appeals does not jettison
justice, though often times, appeals are the bane of the justice system,
especially because the rich can defeat the poor and the weak can be baulked of
their rights indefinitely that way. The Board is a statutory body and when it
violates the prescriptions of the law or otherwise acts arbitrarily or
malafide, Art. 226 of the Constitution is a corrective. [146 F-G]
6. Act 15 of 1978 has none of the
characteristics of class legislation and is on the other hand, an equalising
measure with a pragmatic touch. The Cochin Kovilagam vis-a- vis the Kerala
State is sui generis. It has been legislatively dealt with as a special class
throughout the history of Kerala and before. Partitioning of the royal family
estates on principles similar those applicable to all other Kerala Hindu
Families with the only difference that a Board instead of a Civil Court allots
shares by metes and bounds, is fully justifiable by the special circumstances.
[147 A-B]
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Special Leave
Petition (Civil) No. 5863 of 1979.
139 From the Judgment and Order dated
15-12-1978 of the Kerala High Court in Original Petition No. 679/78-II.
N. Sudhakaran for the Petitioner.
A. S. Nambiar for the Respondents.
The Order of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J. All the parties are represented by counsel and we have heard
them in extenso. We therefore proceed to pass a speaking order.
The princely family of Cochin with a
proletarian plurality of members has been the cynosure of special legislations,
the last of which is Act 15 of 1978, the target of attack in this special leave
petition. Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution have been the ammunation used
by the petitioner in the High Court and here to shoot down the legislation as
ultra vires.
A brief sketch of the family law of the
Cochin royalty may serve to appreciate the scheme of the latest legislation
under challenge. The Maharaja of Cochin, reigned and ruled over a pretty
princely State, Cochin, which is now an integral part of the Kerala State. When
the curtain of history rose to find India free, the constellation of princedoms
fused into Independent India's democratic geography. Cochin and Travancore
finally fell in with this trend. As a first step they were integrated into the
Travancore-Cochin State which came into being on July 1, 1949. Two days before
this constitutional merger, the Maharaja of Cochin issued a Proclamation to
provide for the impartibility, administration and preservation of the Royal
Estate and the Palace Fund through a Board of Trustees. A small process of
family legislation on the Cochin Palace followed the political transformation
of the State. The Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the palace Fund
(Partition) Act, 1961 (Actt 16 of 1961) was the first, the primary purpose of
which was to undo the impartibility of the royal estate as declared by the Proclamation
of 1949.
The shares of the members, the mode of
division and the machinery for partition were statutorily prescribed by
Sections 4 and 5 of the said Act. The basics of those two sections were that on
a majority of the major members of the royal family expressing their wish to be
divided, the Maharaja would consider whether it was in the interest of the
family to partition the estate among the members and, if he did, direct the
Board of Trustees to proceed with the partition under his supervision and
control. Each member, including a child in the womb, was eligible for a single
share on an equal basis. The privi- 140 leges of the Maharaja were preserved as
his personal right but vis-a-vis family assets feudal 'Primogeniture' fell to
modern egalite, within limits.
The next epochal legislation was the 26th
Constitution Amendment Act of December 1971 which extinguished all royal
privileges, privy purses and cher dignities of the erstwhile rulers of the
Indian States. With the denudation of his royal privileges the Cochin Maharaja
stepped down to the level of the karta of a joint Hindu family. The royalty
which was once a reality became a mere memory and with the statutory injection
of democratic rights into this blue- blooded family, plebeian claims for equal
shares began to be voiced, especially because the multifid of little royalties
of the Maharaja's matriarchal family lived in lurid poverty, as counsel
distressingly described. Indeed, the marummakkattayam system which at one time
ensured impartibility and management by the senior-most member had lost its
functional value and virtually vanished from the Kerala coast, thanks to the
erosive process of legislative individualism. The final blow to this system was
delivered by the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975 (Act 30
of 1976) which fully wiped out the matriarchal pattern of holding and the Hindu
undivided family system in the State of Kerala. Despite this revolutionary
change, the Cochin royal family maintained its former status as a
marummakkattayam undivided coparcenary since it was governed by special
legislation which remained unrepealed. This regal matriarchal survival levelled
into the main-stream of proprietary life with equal, partible shares for young
and old, like the rest of the community when the Kerala legislature enacted the
Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) and the
Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1978 (Act 15 of
1978) (preceded by Ordinance No. 1 of 1978).
A close-up of this statutory scheme is
necessary since it is this legislation which is furiously fusilladed as
unconstitutional by counsel for the petitioner. The legislative Proclamation of
1949, if we briefly recapitulate, commended the Constitution by His Highness
the Maharaja of a five-man Board of Trustees charged with the plenary task of
'administration, management and conservation' of the 'Estate' and 'Palace
Fund'. Act 16 of 1961 brought about a degree of economic democratisation while
preserving some of the special legal habiliments of the royal estate. The Board
nominated under the earlier Proclamation was continued but its responsibilities
were broadened to include partitioning of the Kovilakam assets if a majority of
major members-the voice of Palace democracy- asked for divi- 141 sion and the
Maharaja deemed it desirable in the interests of the family. This was a half
way house between the impartible old and partible-at-will new. A short
provision of great relevance to the issue of constitutionality is to be found
in Section 7. The public policy behind this Section excluding civil court
jurisdiction is not merely the special situation of the former royal family but
the virtual impossibility within a life-time of division by metes and bounds
and allotment of shares to the 800 odd members, most of whom are little
royalties in rags, homeless and hungry, seeking to survive by the small pieces
from the large cake if ever it will be sliced and distributed. The exasperating
longevity of partition litigation, what with the present cantankerous
orientation and procedural interminability, preliminary decree, appeals
thereon, commissions, objections, revisions, final decrees, and a ruinous crown
of other interlocutory proceedings punctuating the suit, followed by inevitable
appeals and special leave petitions and the like, baffles the humble and baulks
their hope of getting a morsel in their short life span. When this
phenomenon-an Indo-Anglican processual bequest-is compounded by the calamitous
fact that there are around 800 sharers and a variety of considerable assets to
be divided, civil litigation for partition is the surest punishment to the
tattered 'princelings' by pauperising them through the justice process and
giving them stones instead of bread in the end, if the end would arrive at all
! The compulsive pragmatics of distributive justice elicited legislative
compassion for this uniquely numerous crowd of pauperised patricians by
exclusion of civil court's jurisdiction. The pathology of protracted, exotic
processual legalistics needs comprehensive renovation if the Justice System is
to survive but the legislature salvaged the largest royal family with the
littlest individual resources without waiting for the remote undertaking to
overhaul Processual Justice to the People. Sociology is the mother of law, lest
law in the books should be bastardised by the law of life.
A radical measure which swept off the
matriarchal system and the Joint family form of estate for Hindus is the next
statutory even which needs mention. Kerala Act 30 of 1976 (The Kerala Joint
Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975), abolished at one stroke the Hindu
undivided family and converted them into tenancies-in-common with the rule of
one member one share. The Cochin 'Kovilagam' was not affected because neither
Act 16 of 1961 nor the prior royal proclamation expressly repealed. But the
individualist spirit of Act 30 of 1976 invaded the royal family legislatively
as there is no basis for proprietary privilege, even as vestiges of past glory,
in a democracy charged with social justice. So, Act 15 of 1978 (The Valiamma
142 Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) and the Kerala
Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1978) came to be passed
whereby division of the Kovilakam assets was freed from the Maharaja's
subjectivism and made a mandate of the statute, in tune with the common trend.
The modus operandi to work out partition was the Board and no specific
prescription regarding the shares of members is given. No appeal from the
partition effected by the Board is specified and Sections 4 and 5 of Act 16 of
1961 are deleted retrospectively.
A quick glance at the provisions gives the
impression that the legislature merely equated the right in partition of the junior
members of the Kovilakam with that of the commonalty of marumakkattayam
families save that instead of the Civil Court the division by metes and bounds
was to be carried out by the Board which was already in management and was
familiar with the features of the family and the assets.
A closer look, in the light of the
constitutional challenge which was repelled by the High Court, leaves us cold,
hot submissions to burn down the allegedly arbitrary and irresesonable
legislation notwithstanding.
Let us dissect the anatomy of the Amending
Act of 1978.
Be it remembered that Act 16 of 1961 (the
principal Act) is not and has never been attacked as ultra vires. If the
principal Act was good the search for the invalidatory vice must be confined to
the cluster of new clauses.
The principal violation pressed before us by
Shri Govindan Nair for the petitioner, who is a senior member of the family, is
of Art. 14 and the customary contention, more easily waged than established, is
that arbitrary, unguided, naked and tyrannical power is conferred on the Board
and therefore the whole Act is bad because the central piece of the statutory
scheme is this machinery. True, our constitutional order is sensibly and
sensitively allergic to arbitrary power and we have no hesitation in striking
down any provision which can be anathematised as creating uncanalised and
Neronised Power. The very creation of the Board was challenged as violative of
Art. 14 since the jurisdiction of the Civil Court is the common forum with
other judicial remedies, appellate and revisional, available for the aggrieved
party. While the Board is given plenary power to divide and distribute with
validity being conferred on such partition the grievance is that there are no
appeals and revisions and the arbitrament of the Board even if it is arbitrary
becomes final. This is castigated as a caprice of the legislature. More than
all, the very singling 143 out of the ruler's family, populous though it be, is
anathematised as discriminatory. Incidentally, the powers of the Board are
charged as unreasonable since there is no provision to give a hearing to the
affected parties in the process of adjudication and the whole process may well
be the deliberations of a secret campaign. These violent vices imputed to the
statute will certainly invalidate the Act 15 of 1978, if there were some
substance therein. Even an imaginative exercise, if informed by realism,
discovers no such infirmity.
Let us clear the confusion caused by the
omission of Sections 4 and 5 of the principal Act. Shri Govindan Nair for the
petitioners relied on this omission to contend that the wholesome provisions of
sections 4 and 5 of the Principal Act of 1961 have been waywardly withdrawn
leaving it to the Board to award such shares as they fancied to the various
members. This submission proceeds on a simple misconception. Section 4 provides
for an equal share for every member including a child in the womb and Section 5
arrogates to the Maharaja of Cochin the power to exclude any properties from the
category of partible estate. No democrat will shed a tear if Section 5 were
deleted. The members, as Shri Govindan Nair himself urged, were mostly
indigent. If that were so, the infliction upon such members by the Maharaja's
act of exclusion of as many properties as he thought should not be divided
would be unjust. Since every member was entitled to an equal share with the
Maharaja himself all the properties should be available for partition and this
result, which is eminently just, is achieved by the omission of Section 5 from
Act 16 of 1961. Therefore, the provision in Act 15 of 1978 omitting Section 5
from the principal Act is a virtue to be commended, not a vice to be condemned.
It is eminently reasonable and to contend against it is obviously unreasonable.
A different criticism has been made regarding
the deletion of Section 4 by Shri Govindan Nair; but it is equally
mis-conceived, if we may say so. Section 4 of Act 16 of 1961 provided for the
share of members including those en ventre sa mere. This provision was deleted
because its purpose was otherwise served by the substituted Section 3 of Act 16
of 1961 by including a direction to the Board "to effect partition of the
Estate and the Palace Fund among all the members entitled to a share. . . under
Section 4 of the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975 (Act 30
of 1976)." The effect of the importation of Section 4 of the Abolition Act
is to ensure partition per capita among all the members as in the case of a
Joint Hindu Family other than an undivided Mitakshara Hindu family.
144 What was otiose, namely, Section 4 of Act
16 of 1961, was cut out. This was merely a drafting operation not making any
change in the substantive law bearing upon the shares of the members. The
contention that by this deletion the members of the Kovilagam had been made
over as hostages to the caprice of the Board of Trustees is a frightful error
or disingenuous scare.
In the course of his submissions, counsel had
a dig at the Board, which, according to him, was an imperium in imperio, a law
unto itself and, therefore, arbitrary. This again is an egregious error. The
Board was not a new creation but an old concoction. Thirty years ago the Ruler
brought it into being. Since then, the Kerala legislature, in Act 16 of 1961,
continued it and the latest legislation now denounced before us recognised this
time-honoured entity wherein the heads of the four branches were members and
entrusted it with the work of division of assets. The Board, being an old
institution in plenary management since 1949 and wisely composed of the
seniormost members of the four branches, is sentimentally and functionally the
best instrument to divide and distribute. Indeed Act 16 of 1961 had also
entrusted the task of partition to the same Board and no member had during
nearly two decades challenged the wisdom of the provision. We see no legal
ground to blaspheme this Board.
The greater grievance of counsel about the
Board was something else. He contended that the Board under Section 3 (2) was empowered
to affect the partition of the Estate and the Palace Fund "and the
partition so affected shall be valid...." From this the criticism was spun
out that the Board was likely to act in any manner it pleased, sell the
properties at any price, distribute the assets at its sweet will or whim and
thus reduce the partition of Kovilagam properties to a mock exercise by an
unchallengable Board. He contrasted this grim picture with the advantageous
alternative of a civil suit where the shares were fixed according to law, the
properties were valued by a Commissioner, objections to the report of the
Commissioner were considered by the Court and a decree, preliminary or final,
was subject to appeal and further appeal. The judicial process was a great
guarantee of the rights of parties which was unavailable before the statutorily
immunised and potentially eccentric Board of Trustees. We remained unmoved by
this sombre picturisation made up of illusory apprehensions. We have earlier
pointed out that the strength of the Cochin Royal family is around 800. The
properties consist of urban lands, rural lands, buildings and other assets
considerable in volume and value. A litigative resolution of the conflicts
among members with the plethora of interlocutory proceedings plus revisions 145
and appeals may be an endless adventure which would surely bankrupt the poorer
members and deny to everyone a share in the properties by metes and bounds for
a generation to come.
Of course, those who are already in
possession of properties-and counsel for the respondent hinted that the
petitioners belong to this category-would benefit by striking down this
legislation and delay in legislative rectification of the situation and the
further litigation that might be launched and so on. Those who have, have a
vested interest in procratination; those who have not, have an urgent interest
in instant justice. In this view, a non- curial instrumentality and procedure
for partitioning the properties cannot be condemned as discriminatory. The alternative
created by the statute is quite a reasonable and in our view a better
instrument having regard to the totality of factors. Law is not a cocoon and
keeps its eyes wide awake to the realities of life. The legislation in question
has taken note of the fact that the Board has been for decades entrusted by the
Maharaja by his Proclamation with the administration of the family estate and
no complaints have ever been voiced against their management.
The latter legislation of 1961 has sanctified
this Board.
That legislation has gone to the extent of
conferring powers of partitioning the Kovilagam properties on this Board and
the present Act of 1978 does nothing more. We are unable to understand how what
was good and valid in 1961 Act could become vicious and invalid in 1978. The
composition of the Board and its history and experience convince us that it was
a fit instrument for the task entrusted.
The fear expressed before us that the Board
may ignore the norms of judicial procedure while settling the rights of parties
is misplaced. We do not regard Section 3 of Act 15 of 1978 as dispensing with
canons of fairplay of natural justice and of quasi-judicial values.
We realise that the enormous work of dividing
the properties has to be carefully carried out. Quasi-judicial responsibilities
are implied by the statute in the Board's functions and if the Board breaches
these norms and canons the constitutional remedy under Article 226 comes into
play.
After all, the Board is a statutory body and
not an executive creature. It has been saddled with effecting the rights of
parties and is bound to act quasi-judicially. Its deviances are not
unreviewable in writ jurisdiction.
Therefore, we direct the Board to comply with
the requirements prescribed in several decisions of this Court in
quasi-judicial jurisdictions. Natural justice is obviously the first as this
Court has ruled in a shower of cases especially highlighting in Maneka Gandhi's
case(1) and M. S. Gill's case(2). This Court has 146 gone to the extent of holding
that natural justice require reasons to be written for conclusions made. The
Organo Chemical Industries & Anr. v. Union of India & Anr.(1) this
Court has held that the absence of a right of appeal does not spell
arbitrariness. It is further held in the same ruling that giving of reasons for
conclusions is ordinarily an important component of natural justice in
quasi-judicial tribunals. In short, every facility that a party will reasonably
receive before a quasi-judicial body when rights are adjudicated upon, will be
available before this Board and we mandate it to extend such facilities and
opportunities. We need hardly mention that when properties are sold parties
must be intimated and the principles embedded in the Partition Act must be
taken note of when properties are valued and allotted. The services of valuers
of properties or of Commissioners must also be used.
Moreover, parties must be given opportunity
to object to reports of Commissioners, if any, appointed. In short, the general
law, processual and substantive, bearing on allotment of properties cannot be
thrown to the winds by the Board merely because Section 3 does not write these
details into it. We must hasten to caution that no party can hold the Board in
ransom by raising vexatious and frivolous objections and putting in proceeding
after proceeding merely to delay or defeat. The Board is geared to completion
of the partition with a reasonable speed and that purpose must inform its
activities. While every party is entitled to a reasonable voice in the
proceedings no party can enjoy the privilege of thwarting the processes of
justice. These observations and directions which are built-in in Section 3, in
our view, are sufficient guidelines to repel the submission that the power
under Section 3(2) is unbridled and unconstitutional. Partitions are best done
by a broad consensus and the Board will remember that constant consultation
with the members may facilitate its work and reduce tension and friction.
Nor are we impressed with the argument that
because appeals are absent justice is jettisoned. Oftentimes, appeals are the
bane of the justice system, especially because the rich can defeat the poor and
the weak can be baulked of their rights indefinitely that way. We do not mean
to decry the right of appeal, but may not go with the petitioner in glorifying
it in all situations. We have emphasised that the Board is a statutory body and
when it violates the prescriptions of the law or otherwise acts arbitrarily or
mala fide, Art. 226 of the Constitution is a corrective. Nothing more is needed
because everything needed is implied in that power.
147 The last and perhaps the least valid
submission, with meretricious attraction, is the challenge based on unequal
legislation picking out one from among equals for hostile treatment. We have
held that the royal family estate is being partitioned on principles similar to
those applicable to all other Kerala Hindu families and the only difference is
a Board instead of a court to allot shares by metes and bounds. This, we have
shown, is fully justified by the special circumstances. The Cochin Kovilakam
vis-a-vis the Kerala State is sui generis. It has been legislatively dealt with
as a special class throughout the history of Kerala and before. The Act
impugned has none of the characteristics of class legislation and, is on the
other hand, an equalising measure with a pragmatic touch.
We negative the specious submission.
We find no merit in this Special Leave
Petition and dismiss it without costs.
V.D.K. Petition dismissed.
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