" 2 (h) In this Act unless there is anything repugnant b tlte subject or context.x x x (h) 'incumbrance' in relation to . estates and rights of intermediaries therein does not include the_ rights of a raiyat or of an under-raiyat or of a non-agricultural tenant, but shall, except in the case of land allowed to be retained by an intermediary under the provisions of section 6, include all rights or interests of whatever nature, belonging to intermediaries or other persons, which relate to lands comprised in estates or to the produce thereof." And so the two gut questions are : ( i) whether a right to graze cattle in the estate of another falls within the sweep of the comprehensive expression 'all l'.ights or interests of whatever naturte'; and (ii) whether the members of a village as a collective, though fluctuating body, are covered by the words 'intermediaries or other persons'. While thti two courts at the ground and first-floor level decided the two points above-mentioned in favour of the State, the Hirh Court, after a long and discursive discussion, the labyrinth~ne course of which need not be traversed by us, reached the conclusion that the right in question was a public right belonging to an unspecified and varying group-not a specific private interest vesting in specified persons-and therefore left untouched by ss. 3 to 5 and uncovered by f;.2(h). Is that view sustainable on a correct construction of the provision? Putting a literal and teleological construction on the definition of 'incumbrance' we have hardly any doubt that the legislature has used language of the widest amplitude to cast the net wide and to catch all rights and interests whatever be their nature. Indubitably, the right to graze cattle in an estate is a restrictive interest dearly falling within the scope of the provision. Indeed, so designedly limitless an area of rights and interests of whatever nature is included in the special definition of 'incumbrance' for the purposes of the Act, that to deny the 'familiar rurally enjoyed right of pasturage as covered by it is to defeat, by judicial construction, the legislative intendment. Likewise, there is no substance in the contention that the collective, though uncertain, body of villagers cannot be brought within the expression 'or other persons'. The connotation of those words in the context is 'intermediaries or persons other than inte.rmediarie.s'. This embraces all persons othe:r than intermediaries and the villagers
