' This judgment will dispose of Writ Petitions Nos. 6449/1980, 6551/1980 and 6598/1980, in which a common question arises, namely, whether the petitioners who had been granted Government lands for cultivation on temporary basis are entitled to retain the same, even after the period of their lease has run out. In the latter mentioned two Writ Petitions, another common question arises, namely, whether in the common circumstances of the two cases, the Government was bound to grant proprietary rights to the petitioners in respect the lands in their occupation.
2. The petitioners case is that charagah lands were granted to them by the Government on lease on temporary basis. They have developed their lands and in the past the Government has been extending, from time to time, the period of their lease, on condition that they would pay rent enhanced by 20 per cent. Of what was payable during the earlier period. The petitioners' grievance is that the Government is not willing to extend the period any more, and that instead they have fixed a date for auctioning the lease rights for the future term. It is prayed that the orders of auctioning the land may be declared to be without lawful authority.
3. I have examined policy letters issued by the Government, in pursuance of which charagah lands have been given on lease to tenants. Through Memo. No, 2085-75/2520-CLI dated 11-4-1975, issued by the' Government of the Punjab, it was directed that lesssees of charagah State lands be granted fresh leases for Kharif 1975 to Rabi 1976, on executing a bond that they would vacate the land at the end of the lease period, and would not claim its renewal or extension for the next year, and that they would pay the rent in advance in cash, which would be 20 per cent. More than the earlier year's lease money.
4. It is obvious that the petitioners must have been granted the extension under this letter. Similarly by another such Memo. No, 8924-76/ 8018-CLI dated 8-10-1976, these leases were directed to be extended for another period from Kharif 1976 to Rabi 1978, with similar conditions. The last such extension was made by Memo. No, 12084-77/197, dated 7-2-1978, which extended the leases of charagah lands up to Rabi 1980. The condition of executing a bond that the lessees would vacate at the termination of the lease period was insisted upon even for the third time. These leases were not extended any further. In fact through the impugned letter, the lease rights in the lands have been directed to be auctioned.
5. In view of the terms and conditions of these leaks, the petitioners have no title to claim any extension as a matter of right. Merely because extensions were granted in the past, no right for a further extension accrues.
' There is no basis for alleging that the petitioners have been discriminated against, because they had obtained the grants in full awareness of the condition and subject to its fulfilment, which they now dub as being discriminatory.
6. In view of the terms under which the petitioners had been allotted the lands, they are bound to deliver its possession to the Government before Kharif 1980. The "General Colony Conditions" are also attracted in this case. These general conditions were made under section 10 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, paragraph 9 of these conditions which is reproduced below enjoins a tenant that : "If the grant is for a limited period, or if the grant can be terminated under the terms thereof, to leave the land as soon as the grant is terminated and surrender it peaceably to the Collector, and if so required by the Collector, to pull down and remove any structures existing thereon, and deliver up the land in a level state and as in its former condition."
7. These conditions having been issued under section 10 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, the grant of any tenancy rights in accordance with the statement of conditions, is to be deemed under section 11, to be a transfer of land under the Crown Grants Act, 1895, section 3 of which is as follows :- "All provisions, restrictions, conditions, and limitations even contained in any such grant or transfer as aforesaid shall be valid and take effect according to their tenor, any rule of law, statute or enactment of the Legislature to the contrary notwithstanding."
8. In view of the above provisions, the conditions of the lease operate as a rule of law, and as such after the termination of the period of lease, a tenant of Government land, has no option but to deliver its possession to the authorities, and on his failure to do so, he is to be regarded as a trespasser, who is liable to be ejected by the Collector under section 32 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act. The petitioners, therefore, have no right to remain in possession, and cannot, therefore, challenge the order by which the lands have been required to be put to auction.
9. It is submitted that in view of the provisions of paragraph 25 of Martial Law Regulation No, 115, a tenant of Government land is protected from being ejected after the termination of his tenancy.
Paragraph 25(1) is reproduced below : "A tenant shall not be ejected from his tenancy unless it is established in a Revenue Court that he has-
(a) failed to pay the rent in accordance with the terms of his tenancy ; or
(b) used the land comprised in the tenancy in a manner which renders unfit for the purposes for which he held it ; or
(c) failed to cultivate or arrange for the cultivation of the land comprised in the tenancy in accordance with the terms thereof, or if there are no express terms in this behalf, in accordance with the customary manner of cultivation in the locality ; or
(d) sublet his tenancy."
10. The case of the tenants was that Martial Law Regulation 115 overrides all other laws, and that all other laws stand repealed to the B extent that they are inconsistent with its provisions. For this view, reliance was placed on Muhammad Yousaf v. Province of Punjab (1). {{FOOT NOTE}}
(1) PLD 1976 Lat. 328 {{FOOT NOTE}} ' However, it was held by the Supreme Court in Babu Khan v. The Crown (1) that "unless express words are used, the provisions of one enactment cannot be treated as curtailed or repealed by implication by a subsequent enactment and this is all the more so if it is found that the latter enactment is auxiliary in character." In this behalf, the relevant English case-law is summed up in Maxwell on 'The Interpretation of Statutes' (Twelfth Edition) at page 191, as follows :- "A later statute may repeal an earlier one either expressly or by implication. But repeal by implication is not favoured by Courts. "Forasmuch", said Coke, "as Acts of Parliaments are established with such gravity, wisdom and universal consent of the whole realm, for the advancement of the commonwealth, they ought not by any constrained construction out of the general and ambiguous words of subsequent Act, to be abrogated.". If, therefore, earlier and later statutes can reasonably be construed in such a way that both can be given effect to, this must be done."
' On the same page, the following example is also cited "The Ecclesiastical Leases Act of 1571, which made void all charging of ecclesiastical property in ecclesiastical hands, was held not to be impliedly repealed by section 13 of the Judgments Act, 1838, whereby a judgment against any person was to operate as a charge on all "lands, tenements, rectories, advowsons, tithes" and heriditaments in which the judgment-debtor had an interest, by regarding the latter enactment as limited to the property of debtors who had the power of charging their property, that is, to lay rectories, advowsons and tithes."
' In the same context, another principle of interpretation derived from case law is given at page 196 of the same book, and it is as follows :- "Now if anything be certain, it is this," said Earl of Selborne L. C. In The Vera Cruz, "that where there are general words in a latter Act capable of reasonable and sensible application without contending them to subjects specially dealt with by earlier legislation, you are not to hold that earlier and special legislation indirectly repealed, altered, or derogated from merely by force of such general words, without any indication of a particular intention to do so. In a later case, Viscount Haldane said : ' We are bound to apply a rule of construction which has been repeatedly laid down and is firmly established. It is that wherever Parliament in an earlier statute has directed its attention to an individual case and has made provision for it unambiguously, there arises a presumption that if in a subsequent statute the Legislature lays down a general principle, that general principle is not to be taken as meant to rip up what the Legislature had before provided for individually, unless an intention to do so is specially declared. A merely general rule is not enough, even though by its terms it is stated so widely that it would, taken by itself, cover special cases of the kind I have referred to."
' The example which the book has cited of such interpretation is that : "Section 7 of the Admiralty Court Act, 1861, which gave jurisdiction to the Court over any claim for damages done by any ship was held not to relate to an action for damages for loss of life under the Fatal Accidents Act. 1846, actions under that Act being in respect of a {{FOOT NOTE}}
(1) 1970 SCM R 107 {{FOOT NOTE}} ' special class of claims involving numerous and important considerations which the Legislature could not be supposed to have had in mind in using words of so general a character."
11. The general maxim is Generalia specialibus non derogant, .i,e, general provisions will not abrogate special provisions. In this respect Craies on Statute Law (Seventh Edition) has cited at page 378, the following passage from Barker v. Edger 1898 A C 748, 754 (P C)
"When the Legislature has given its attention to a separate subject and made provision for it, the presumption is that a subsequent general enactment is not intended to interfere with the special provision unless it menifests that intention very clearly. Each enactment must be construed in that respect according to its own subject-matter and its own terms."
The above principles apply to the facts and circumstances of the present case. Since the Legislature in the earlier Statute i,e,, the Colonization of Government Lands Act, had directed its attention to the case of a special class, namely that of tenants of Government lands, and had made complete provision for their relationship with the Government unambiguously, there must arise a presumption that the subsequent legal instrument namely, Martial Law Regulation 115 laying down a general principle that tenants could not be ejected except through Revenue Courts and under stipulated conditions, that general principle is not to be taken as meant to rip up what the Legislature had before provided in the case of the special class, unless an intention to do so is specially declared in the aforesaid Regulation.
12. The protection which is envisaged to be given to tenants under paragraph 25 of the Regulation is actually against their landlords. However, the Regulation obviously does not apply to a Provincial Government, in its capacity as a landowner, for otherwise the restrictions on ownership and possession of land as contemplated under Part II of the Regulation, would' also apply to Provincial Governments. No protection was, therefore, contemplated to be given to the tenants of State lands against their landlord either. In these circumstances it cannot be presumed that the Legislature intended in any way to repeal the provisions of the Colonization of Government Lands Act. The provisions of paragraph 25 are, therefore, not attracted in the case of lessees of Government land.
The lessees must continue to be governed by the provisions of Colonization of Government Lands Act, and the terms and conditions on which tenancies were granted to them, which terms, on account of the provisions of section 3 of the Crown Grants Act, have the force of law.
13. I now proceed to deal with the second question which arises in two of these cases. It was through Notification No, 3215-79/3973-CLI dated 3rd September, 1979, that conditions were prescribed for purposes of granting proprietary rights in State-land to temporary cultivation lessees. Under this Notification, certain tenants in possession of leased lands since before Kharif, 1977, were made eligible for the purposes of grant of proprietary rights in such lands. Paragraph 2 of this Notification prescribed that permanent rights in charagah lands would not be granted to lessees. Paragraph 6 of the same Notification prescribed that "Any lessee who may be eligible for the purchase of proprietary rights under these conditions shall exercise his option in writing for acquisition of such rights in the land under his possession by or before 31st December, 1979".
14. The petitioners in these cases were lessees of charagah lands and as such proprietary rights in the same could not be granted to them. There is nothing on record to show that the petitioners had even applied for the grant of proprietary rights before the notified date. There is also nothing to suggest that the other conditions for eligibility were fulfilled by the petitioners. No case for grant of proprietary rights to any of the petitioners is, therefore, made out.
15. In view of the above discussion, it is held that the petitioners do not have any right or interest in the State land after the expiry of the term of their lease and that they are not entitled to retain the possession of the land after the period of their lease has run out. As already observed, the petitioners have also not succeeded in showing that they are entitled to the grant of proprietary rights. There is, therefore, no merit in these writ petitions which are accordingly dismissed in limine.