Waste lands, the expression 'waste lands' has a well-defined legal connotation. It means lands which are desolate, abandoned, and not fit ordinarily for use for building purposes. In Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edn., Vol. 2, p. 2510, the meaning of the word 'waste' is given as: 1. Waste or desert land, uninhabited or sparsely inhabited and uncultivated country; a wild and desolate region; 2. A piece of land not cultivated or used for any purpose, and producing little or no herbage or wood. In legal use, a piece of such land not in any man's occupation but lying common. 3. A devastated region. In the sequence in which the expression 'waste lands' appears in the two relevant sections, it cannot but have its ordinary etymological meaning as given in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary i.e., land lying desolate or useless, without trees or grass or vegetation, not capable of any use. In Rajanand Brahma Shah v. State of Uttar Pradesh, ((1967) 1 SCR 373: AIR 1967 SC 1081: (1967) 2 SCJ 830), this Court, while discerning the meaning of 'waste and arable land' in s. 17(4) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, observed that the expression 'waste land' as contrasted to 'arable land', would mean 'land which is unfit for cultiva-tion and habitation, desolate and barren land with little or no vegetation thereon'. To the same effect is the decision in Ishwarlal Girdharilal Joshi v. State of Gujarat, [(1968) 2 SCR 267: AIR 1968 SC 870: (1969) 2 SCJ 247] It is clear that these grass-lands on hilly tracts were not waste lands. They were productive lands in the sense that grass grew naturally and so they were not desolate, abandoned or barren waste lands with no vegetation. The expression 'waste lands' in the context would be clearly, in the ori-ginal sense of the term 'waste' as meaning barren or desolate lands which are unfit for any use or which are worthless, State of Gujarat v. Gujarat Revenue Tribunal, AIR 1980 SC 91: (1979) 4 SCC 40: (1980) 1 SCR 233. [Bombay Tangdari Tenure Abolition Act (62 of 1969), s. 625(1)(b)]
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