JUDGMENT 1. - As all these 67 special appeals, whose details are given in Schedule 'A' annexed are directed against the common judgment of learned Single judge dated 23rd March, 1982, the same are disposed of by one single order. 2. The respondents, who were petitioners before learned Single judge had challenged the notice issued to them under Section 23 (1) of the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation Act, 1975 (hereinafter referred to as the Act'). Learned Single judge though upheld the validity of Section 23 of the Act but took into consideration the following three objections as to the validity of the notices served on the respondents:- (1) Section 23 read with rule 3 prescribes form No. 1 for giving notice. The first requirement is that the authority should be satisfied that for the purposes of executing the scheme of development of land it is necessary that Corporation should take occupation temporarily of the petitioner's land. It was contended that recording of the satisfaction in the notice is a condition precedent and 'sine qua non', for, validity of such notice and this bed-rock and foundation is missing in all the cases. (2) Rule 3, in order to give effect to the requirement of reasonableness contemplated under Section 23, expressly mentions, that the period of such a notice should not be less than one month. In all the cases this requirement has been violated because in some, no time has been allowed and in some cases one month's time has not been allowed. (3) Section 23 and rule 3 and the prescribed form No. 1 is meant for intimation but in all these cases the notice is for intimation as coercive threats have been given by addition of an unauthorised clause that the petitioner would be tined Rs. 1,000/- and can also be sent to jail for six months under Section 31 if any obstruction is put in the execution of this work. This clause is not only against the prescribed form but violative of Section 23 and Rule 3. Learned Single judge held that the first two defects pointed out above in the notice constitute essential requirement of Section 23 and Rule 3 of the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation Rules, 1977, which included the prescribed form No. 1. This clause is not only against the prescribed form but violative of Section 23 and Rule 3. Learned Single judge held that the first two defects pointed out above in the notice constitute essential requirement of Section 23 and Rule 3 of the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation Rules, 1977, which included the prescribed form No. 1. According to the learned Single judge, since the satisfaction of the competent authority had not been recorded in the notice and a period of not less than one month had not been given and both the requirements were bed-rock foundation of the notice, all these notices were liable to be quashed being in violation of Section 23 and Rule 3. Learned Single judge as regards the third defect observed as under : "All we have ignored the third defect mentioning of Section 31 in the notice, as it is not fatal, but the first two defects are material and invalidate the notice. I need not repeat what has been said in Gopal Mal's case emphasising requirement of the notice. I am convinced on account of the substantial defects pointed out above, the notices given to the petitioners in all the cases cannot be termed as reasonable as contemplated by Section 23 of the Act." 3. The Rajasthan Land Development Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation') aggrieved against the judgment of the learned Single judge has filed all these special appeals under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949. 4. In order to appreciate the arguments advanced by Mr. B. P. Gupta on behalf of the Corporation, it would be necessary to give a back-ground of the Act and the Rules made therein. The preamble of the Act reads as under : "An act to constitute a corporation for the execution of projects relating to land development with a view to preventing damage to land and loss in agricultural productivity and to accruing optimum utilisation of land and water resources in the State of Rajasthan and for other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto." 5. The statement of objects and reasons of the above enactment read as follows :Statement of objects and reasons : 1. Finance of command area development projects with an investment totalling to 21,200 Crorers of rupees over six year period has recently been negotiated with the World Bank for Rajasthan Canal and Chambal area. The statement of objects and reasons of the above enactment read as follows :Statement of objects and reasons : 1. Finance of command area development projects with an investment totalling to 21,200 Crorers of rupees over six year period has recently been negotiated with the World Bank for Rajasthan Canal and Chambal area. Similar projects are expected to be taken up for other major canal commands in the State in due course. Land development for satisfactory management and on catchment basis involving all the concerned farmers and optimum use of irrigation and development projects by ensuring compulsory participation of all concerned land hollers in these projects the World Bank insisted for the setting up of' a statutory land development corporation by Pith day of September, 1974 of a precondition of effectiveness of the World Bank Agreement. 2. As the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly was not then in session, Rajasthan Land Development Corporation was established by the Raj is than Land Development Corporation Ordinance, 1974. The Bill seeks to replace this Ordinance by the Act of the State Legislature. The following are the salient features of the Bill - (i) establishment of the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation to carry out the programme of land development on scientific lines, with its share capital of Rs. 1,000 crores, of which shares of 200 crores will be issued in the first instance. The Share capital is to be subscribed in 50 : 50 ratio by the State Government and the Central Government. (ii) some of the important functions of the Corporation are:- (a) to provide funds in bulk to the command area authorities for execution of land development works; (b) to help cultivators to obtain loan from cammercial banks for development of their land; (c) to provide special loans to cultivators who are unable for valid reasons to obtain ordinary loans from these banks; (d) to undertake directly or through other agencies programmes of on farm development in areas assigned to it. (e) to ensure participation of the land-holder in the development programmes on his land by requiring him either to undertake specified development works or to pay to the corporation cost of such work to be executed by it; (iii) provision for stoppage of supply of irrigation water if the land holder fails in or obstructs carrying out of land development programme; (iv) provision for effective machinery to take suitable action against the defaulter of the corporation in execution of land development work according to sanctioned plants, and for settlement of claims and disputes arising from execution of land development programmes. 3. It is hoped that the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation will be able to provide a satisfactory answer to various difficulties encountered in securing the optimum utilisation of land and water resources and in achieving the maximum agricultural productivity in the State." 6. The above preamble of the Act and Statement of Objects and Reasons clearly go to show that the object of this Legislation was the execution of the projects relating to land development with a view to preventing damage to land and loss in agricultural productivity and to secure optimum utilisation of land and water resources in the State of Rajasthan. The execution of the projects was to be done with the help of finances, negotiated with the World Bank for Rajasthan Canal and Chambal Areas. The special features of the project were optimum use of irrigation and development of modern agricultural technology. It may also be mentioned that the Rajasthan Land Development Corporation was to be established with its share capital of Rs. 1,000 Crores of which shares of Rs. 200 crore were to be issued in the first instance. The share capital was to be subscribed in 50 : 50 ratio by the State Government and the Central Government. In order to achieve the above objects. the World Bank had insisted to complete the execution of projects within a time bound period as a condition for the grant of finance. 7. The share capital was to be subscribed in 50 : 50 ratio by the State Government and the Central Government. In order to achieve the above objects. the World Bank had insisted to complete the execution of projects within a time bound period as a condition for the grant of finance. 7. Under Section 20 of the Act, the State Government by issuing Notification in the official Gazette had to sanction any project, specifying the areas entrusted to the Corporation and the works to be executed by the Corporation in such areas Sub-section (2) of Section 20 prodded that notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the relevant law, Corporation shall in collaboration with the prescribed agency be the sole authority for execution of works in the areas entrusted to the Corporation under sub-section (2) except in cases where land-holders execute works in their respective land-holdings within the period and in the manner specified by the competent authority. Under Section 21 the Corporation may execute the work itself or have the works exeexecuted through the appropriate department of the State Government or through any other agency. We would like to reproduce Sections 23 and 24, as, much of the controversy has been raised on the ambit and scope of these Sections : "S. 23 : Power to enter upon a land holding:- (l) Such officers, servants and other persons as may be authorised by the corporation or the State Government in this behalf, may at any time, after giving a land holder reasonable notice enter upon his land holding and carry out survey and investigations and all such works and things as may be necessary in connection with execution of any project. (2) If the corporation continues to occupy a land holding for the purpose of execution of works for a period beyond three months, the corporation shall compensate the concerned landholder for any loss of income from the land holding which he would have otherwise not suffered. "Such compensation shall be determined in an inquiry to be held by the Collector after giving both the corporation and the landholder an opportunity of being heard." "S. 24-Proportionate cost of works to be provided by landholders. "Such compensation shall be determined in an inquiry to be held by the Collector after giving both the corporation and the landholder an opportunity of being heard." "S. 24-Proportionate cost of works to be provided by landholders. (1) For the purpose of execution of the works, every land holder, other than those who execute the works in their respective land holdings within the period and in the manner specified by the competent authority, shall pay to the proportionate cost of works on the issue of a notice to him by the corporation, (2) The said notice shall, in addition to such other matters as the corporation may deem necessary specify : (i) the amount of the proportionate cost of works payable by the landholder to the corporation ; (ii) the period within which and the place at which the payment is to be made; and (iii) number of instalments, if any, fixed for such payment, and the due dates thereof; (3) The notice under this section shall be served upon the landholder in the manner provided in the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956 (Rajasthan Act 15 of 1956). (4) Any dispute relating to a notice shall be adjudicated in an inquiry to be held by the Collector." 8. Section 25 of the Act provides that if a land-holder neglected or failed to pay to the corporation the proportionate cost of works as provided in the notice under section 24, the work shall be executed by the Corporation and the whole of the proportionate costs of work or the outstanding amount thereof as the case may be, shall be charged on his land-holding and shall be recoverable as stated in Section 29 Sections 26 and 27 lay down the provision. for the grant of ordinary and special loan to the land-holder for meeting out the cost of work. Rule 3 lays down a provision for giving notice to land-holder to give effect to Section 23 (1) of the Act. According to sub-rule (1) of Rule 3 the notice is required to be given under subsection (1) of Section 23 of the Act, shall be in form No. 1, the period of which shall not he less than one month before the date of entering upon the land. According to sub-rule (1) of Rule 3 the notice is required to be given under subsection (1) of Section 23 of the Act, shall be in form No. 1, the period of which shall not he less than one month before the date of entering upon the land. Then the Rules also contain form No. 1 as prescribed under Rule 3 and we would only reproduce the relevant portion of form No. 1 which is relevant for the consideration of these cases : "To: ...... Whereas the Command area Authority/Area Development Commissioner is satisfied that for the purpose of execrating the Scheme of land development in .... ..... it is necessary that the land in village ......... Panchayat Simiti ........ ....... ...District ...... .......... particulars of which are given below, should be taken into occupation temporarily : S. No. Description of land Survey of Khasra No. Area in hectares Name of land land holder Now, therefore, you Shri/Shrimati ................. ............... son/wife of .. ....................................... Village ............................... Tehsil . ... ...........................District ....................... .......... is/are hereby given notice that after one month from the date of the service of the notice land/s specified above shall be entered upon to carry out surveys, investigation and all such works and things as may be necessary in connection with the execution of the scheme. Authorised Officer. Dated ... " 9. A scheme of the above mentioned provisions in the Act and the Rules goes to show that first the State Government shall sanction project under section 20 of the Act. Under Section 23 such officers, servants and other persons as may be authorised by the Corporation or the State Government may at any time after giving a reasonable notice to the land-holder enter upon his land for carrying out surveys and investigations and all such works and things as may be necessary in connection with execution of any project The notice, though only a 'reasonable notice' has been mentioned under Section 23 (1) of the Act, however, Rule 3 lays down that such notice shall be in form No. 1 and the period of which shall not be less than one month before the date of entering upon the land. This clearly goes to show that the notice given under Section 23(l) is only for the purpose of entering upon the land to carry out surveys and investigation for the works to be done in relation to the execution of the project. Rule 3 fixes a period of not less than one month before the date of entering upon the Ian I A read land of Section 23(1) of the Act and Rule 3 goes to show that a land-holder in should have a reasonable notice, which should not be less than one month before the officers or other persons entered upon his land. The provision of giving notice of one month cannot be considered as mandatory and the main thing to be seen is whether one month has expired or not before the officers or other persons enter upon the land. It is not the case of any one of petitioners that any officers or persons entered upon his land before the expiry of one month front the date of the notice but they have rushed to this court merely on the ground that such period of one month has not been mentioned in the notices given to them. In case of number of petitioners instead of one month it has been mentioned that entry would be made after 30 days of the receipt of this notice by the land-holder and in some case of course no period has been mentioned at all. Learned Single fudge has quashed all the notices irrespective of the fact in many case 30 days period was mentioned. Though Mr. Gupta, learned counsel for the appellant has placed a chart indicating the cases in which 30 days period has been mentioned and cases in which no such time has been given but in the view taken by us that the provision itself is directory and not mandatory, it would not be necessary to make distinction in the cases on this account. The notices are meant for giving a knowledge before entering upon his land for survey and investigation purposes. Admittedly none of the petitioner-respondents had alleged that any of the officers, servants, or other persons entered upon his land before one month of giving of the notice and now even more than a year has elapsed after the serving of such notice. Admittedly none of the petitioner-respondents had alleged that any of the officers, servants, or other persons entered upon his land before one month of giving of the notice and now even more than a year has elapsed after the serving of such notice. The entire scheme and object of the Act is for the benefit of the farmers and the land-holders. There is a provision under Section 23 (2) that in case the Corporation continues to occupy a land-holding for the purpose of execution of works for a period beyond three months, the Corporation was requited to compensate the concerned land-holder for any loss of income. However, the entry under Section 23 (1) is not for purpose or starting the execution of work itself. There is a provision under Section 24 for payment of proportionate cost of works to be provided by land-holders to the Corporation in case the land-holder did not execute the works himself within a period and in the manner specified by the competent authority The amount is payable in instalments and we are informed by the learned counsel for the Corporation that the period for payment of instalments is fixed as 15 years. Any dispute relating to a notice under Section 24 has to be adjudicated in an inquiry held by the Collector. The Corporation grants facilities of ordinary loans through a Bank or a Financing Institution and for special loans to be granted by the Corporation itself and in the existence of all such provisions the serving of notice under Section 23 (1) cannot be construed in a technical and narrow manner. The main idea behind such notice is to give a reasonable period, may be of one month, before actually entering upon the land. There is sufficient compliance of the requirement of this period in these cases and the petitioner-respondents cannot raise any grievance in case the officers, servants or other persons of the Corporation enter upon the land after one month of serving of the notice. It has been held in (1) Pioneer Motors (Private) Ltd. v. Municipal Council Nagaroli: AIR 1967 SC. 684 : "Held however that the provision in regard to time, in the context must be held to be directory and not mandatory. The use of the words "reasonable period" before the words not being less than one mouth" was significant. It has been held in (1) Pioneer Motors (Private) Ltd. v. Municipal Council Nagaroli: AIR 1967 SC. 684 : "Held however that the provision in regard to time, in the context must be held to be directory and not mandatory. The use of the words "reasonable period" before the words not being less than one mouth" was significant. If sufficient tune had been given for the invitation of the objections which only just falls short of the period mentioned in the proviso, then it would serve the object of the legislature. The power of the municipality to levy the tax did not depend upon a period prescribed for notice for objections. The power to tax was derived from the statute; the provisions relating to the length of notice inviting objections and publication were merely procedural." 10. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court in (2) Sharifuddin v. Abdul Gani Lone, laid down the test to determine whether a provision is directory or mandatory. It was held that in order to find out the true character of the legislation, the Court has to ascertain the object which the provision of law in question is to observe and its design and the context in which it is enacted. If the object of a law is to be defeated by non-compliance with it, it has to be regarded as mandatory. But when a provision of law relates to the performance of any public duty and the invalidation of any act done in dis-regard of that provision causes serious prejudice to those for whose benefit it is enacted and at the same time who have no control over the performance of the duty, such provision should be treated as a directory one. 11. Applying the above test in the present case, it can be said without contradiction that the provisions of Section 23 (1) of the Act read with Rule 3 are directory and not mandatory. 12. It was contended by Mr. Mehrish, learned Counsel for the respondents that under section 24 (1) there was a provision for giving a notice to every landholder to execute the work himself within a period and in the manner specified by the competent authority and in case such work is not executed by the land-holder himself then alone he may be asked to pay the proportionate cost of work. In our view, such stage has not arrived and at present only notice under section 23 (1) has been served which only authorises officers, servants and other persons to enter upon a land-holding for the purpose of carrying out surveys and investigations and all such works and things as may be necessary in connection with execution of any project. It is necessary also in order to work out amount of proportionate cost of works payable by the land-holder to the Corporation. It was held by Rajinder Sacker J. In (3) Rawat Ram v. State of Rajasthan and others while dealing with a case at the stage of Section 24 of the Act : XXX XXX XXX XXX We agree with the above view taken by Rajinder Sachar J. that under Section 24 the competent authority was not mandatorily required to direct the land holder to execute the work himself even if the competent authority for good, sound technical reasons in connection with the works feels that such a work should not be executed by the land-holder. If in a particular case the competent authority under the relevant law has not chosen fit to take any action asking, the land holder to execute any work, the jurisdiction of the Corporation is neither suspended nor taken away. Be that as it may, as already observed above, we are in these cases only concerned with the validity of notice issued under section 23(1) read with Rule 3 and for the reasons given above, we find no illegality in the notice so as to quash the same. 13. Now we shall examine the other ground given by the learned Single judge that the notice was invalid as it did not record a satisfaction as contemplated in the language used in the prescribed form No. 1 annexed to the Rules. Learned Single Judge in this regard held that recording of the satisfaction in the notice was a condition precedent and sine qua non' for validity of such notice and this bed-rock and foundation was missing in all the cases. In our view there is nothing in the language of form No. 1 of the prescribed notice for recording of satisfaction in the notice itself. The language only makes a mention "while as the Command Area Authority Area Development Commissioner is satisfied that for the purpose of executing the scheme of land development in. ......... In our view there is nothing in the language of form No. 1 of the prescribed notice for recording of satisfaction in the notice itself. The language only makes a mention "while as the Command Area Authority Area Development Commissioner is satisfied that for the purpose of executing the scheme of land development in. ......... It is necessary that the land in village ..... ....." It is a well settled principle of interpretation of Statute that when a power is conferred to take action on being satisfied as to certain conditions for reasons to be recorded, action cannot be taken simply on being satisfied without recording the reasons of satisfaction. But if the Statute does not require either the recording of satisfaction of the reasons therefore, an order made without recording the satisfaction as to fulfilment of the conditions on which the exercise of power depends. does not make the order invalid. In such cases it is the fact of satisfaction of the authority which give rise to jurisdiction and not the recording of the satisfaction. In the cases in hand neither section 23 of the Act nor Rule 3 lay down any provision for recording of satisfaction nor even mentioning the fact of satisfaction in the notice. The form of the notice of course makes a mention for the satisfaction as mentioned above. However, even the form of the notice does not lay down for recording any reasons of satisfaction. It is a satisfaction of the authorities mentioned in the notice to enter upon the land for purpose of executing the scheme of land development. There is a mention of the following language used in the notice:HINDI MATTERIt has also been clearly mentioned in all the notices that the notice was given in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 23 (1) of the Act. This goes to prove beyond any manner of doubt that the authorised officer was satisfied and there is full and complete compliance of provisions of Section 23 (1) of the Act. There is presumption under Section 114 (e) of the Evidence Act that all official acts have been done in a regular manner. Thus, we are clearly of the opinion that the learned Single Judge was wrong in quashing the notice on this ground. 14. There is presumption under Section 114 (e) of the Evidence Act that all official acts have been done in a regular manner. Thus, we are clearly of the opinion that the learned Single Judge was wrong in quashing the notice on this ground. 14. It may be observed that the Rajasthan Land Development Act is a beneficial legislation and the entire provisions are meant for the benefit of the cultivators and its provisions cannot he interpreted in a narrow, technical and pedentic manner. Any how we have considered all the aspects of the matter in detail and in the facts and circumstances of these cases we do not find any illegality in the notice served on the respondents. 15. In the result, we allow all these appeals, set aside the judgment of the learned Single judge dated 23rd March, 1982 and dismiss all the writ petitions. The parties shall bear their own costs though out. *******