N.A. Abdul Latheef vs The Authorised Officer (Land Reforms)

Ratnam, J.—This civil revision petition has been preferred by the land owner against the order of the Land Tribunal (District Revenue

Officer). Thanjavur in L.T.C.M.A. 50 of 1982, affirming the order of the Authorised Officer (Land Reforms), Kumbakonam, declaring an extent

of 3.06 std. acres as surplus in accordance with the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act 1961 (Act 58

of 1961) (hereinafter referred to as the Act). It was found that on 15-2-1970 the family of the petitioner held lands in excess of the ceiling area

under the Act and proceedings were initiated by the Authorised Officer (Land Reforms) Kumbakonam, and after observing the requirements of the

provisions of the Act, an extent of 3.06 std., acres was declared as surplus and orders were passed on 12-12-1978 under S.9(2)(b) of the Act.

One of the objections raised by the petitioner in the course of the proceedings under S.9(2)(b) of the Act was that his family consisted of six

members, excluding his wife, and the family was entitled to hold 30 standard acres under Ss. I and VI, as per Form No. 6, prescribed under the

Act, but, this objection was overruled. An appeal was preferred by the petitioner against that order in L.T.C.M.A. 13 of 1979 before the Land

Tribunal (District Revenue Officer). Thanjavur and on 30-11-1979, the Tribunal held that as the wife of the petitioner, held 13.06 std. acres in her

name, she cannot be included as a member of the family of the petitioner, and excluding her, the family of the petitioner consisted of six members

entitled to hold 20 std. acres, whereas the actual holding of the petitioner was only 13.11 std. acres, well within the permitted ceiling limit and

therefore, there would be no surplus holding with reference to the petitioner under Sec. I of Form No. 6. However, taking into account the holding

of the wife of the petitioner and computing the holding of the family, the Tribunal held that there was an acquirable surplus of 3.06 std., acres and in

this view, dismissed the appeal. Thereafter, the authorised Officer (Land Reforms) Kumbakonam, conducted an enquiry under S.10(5) of the Act,

and by his order dated 28-6-1982, an extent of 3.06 std. acres was declared as surplus and on this basis, preparation of a final statement was also

ordered. Aggrieved by this, the petitioner preferred L.T.C.M.A. 50 of 1982, to the Land Tribunal (District Revenue Officer) Thanjavur. The

Tribunal concurred with the conclusion of the Authorised Officer holding that there was an acquirable surplus of 3.06 std. acres and dismissed the

appeal. It is the correctness of this order that is challenged by the petitioner in this civil revision petition. Learned counsel for the petitioner

contended that having regard to the size of the family of the petitioner, which comprised of seven members, the family was entitled to hold an extent

of 30 std., acres within the ceiling area and there was thus no acquirable surplus at all, with reference to the holding of the family of the petitioner.

Strong reliance in this connection was also placed by the learned counsel for the petitioner upon the decision in Govindaswami v. State of Tamil

Nadu 91 L.W. 615.

On the other hand, the learned Government Advocate submitted that having regard to the extent of land owned by the petitioner and his wife on

15-2-1970, and the applicability of S.5 (4) (b) (i) of the Act, the wife ceased to be a member of the family of the petitioner and that even if the

family of the petitioner, excluding the wife, consisted of six members, his holding has less than 15 std. acres and, therefore, the declaration of the

acquirable surplus, as done by the authorities below, was quite in order and merited no interference.

Before proceeding to consider the aforesaid rival contentions, in the light of the relevant provisions of the Act, it has to be stated that there is no

dispute that the petitioner, on the relevant date, held 13.894 std. acres and his wife held 13.058 std. acres as stridhana lands and the family of the

petitioner inclusive of his wife, consisted of seven members. It would be useful now to refer to the material provisions of the Act. Under S.3 (34) of

the Act, ''person'' has been defined as including any company, family, firm, society or association of individuals, whether incorporated or not or any

private trust or public trust. The expression ''family'' has been defined under S.3 (14) as ''family'' in relation to a person means the person, the wife

or husband, as the case may be, of such persons and his or her (i) minor sons and unmarried daughters, and (ii) minor grandsons and unmarried

grand-daughters in the male line, whose father and mother are dead-, S.3 (42) defines ''stridhana land'' as meaning any land held on the date of the

commencement of this Act by any female member of a family in her own name. S.5 (1) (a) and (b) are the important provisions with reference to

the computation of the ceiling area of a person, and they run as follows:�

Ceiling area: (1) (a) Subject to the provisions of sub-S.(3-A) (3-B) and (3-C), and of Chapter VIII, the ceiling area in the case of every person

(other than the institutions referred to in Cls. (c) and (d) and subject to the provisions of sub-S.(3-A), (3-B), (4) and (5) of Chapter VIII), the

ceiling area in the case of every family consisting of not more than five members shall be 15 standard acres;

(b) The ceiling area in the case of every family consisting of more than five members shall subject to the provisions of sub-S.(3-A), (3-B), (3-C),

(4) and (5) and of Chapter VIII, be 15 standard acres together with an additional five standard acres for every member of the family in excess of

five.

S.5 (2) is to the following effect�

(2) For the purposes of this section, all the lands held individually by the members of a family or jointly by some or all of the members of such

family shall be deemed to be held by the family.

S.5 (4) (a) runs as under�

Subject to the provisions of sub-S.(5), where the stridhana land held by any female member of a family together with the other land held by all the

members of that family, is in excess of 15 standard acres, the female member concerned may hold, in addition to the extent of land which the family

is entitled to hold under sub-S.(1), stridhana land not exceeding 10 standard acres;

Provided that, where any extent of stridhana land held by a female member is included in the extent of land which the family is entitled to hold

under sub-S.(1) and incase where the extent so included is�(i) 10 or more than 10 standard acres, she shall not be entitled to hold any stridhana

land in addition to the extent so included; or

(ii) less than 10 standard acres, she may hold in addition to the extent so included an extent of stridhana land, which together with the extent so

included, shall not exceed 10 standard acres.

S.5 (4) (b) runs thus�

Where the extent of stridhana land held under Cl.(a) by any female member of a family consisting of more than five members�

(i) is 5 or more than 5 standard acres, she shall not be deemed to be a member of that family for the purposes of Cl.(b) of sub-S.(1); or

(ii) is less than 5 standard acres, the additional extent of 5 standard acres allowed under Cl.(b) of sub-S.(1) be reduced by the same extent as the

extent of stridhana land so held.

S.5 (5) states�

Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-S.(1) and in sub-S.(4) and in Chapter VIII the total extent of the land held or deemed to be held by any

family shall in no case exceed 30 standard acres.

In computing the ceiling area of the family of the petitioner, the aforesaid provisions have to be given effect to with reference to the holding of the

petitioner and the stridhana lands of the wife of the petitioner as well as the size of the family of the petitioner. It has earlier been noticed that on the

relevant date, the petitioner owned 13.894 std. acres and his wife held 13-058 std. acres as stridhana lands. Under S.5 (2) of the Act, all the lands

held by the petitioner and his wife shall be deemed to be held by the family. However, under S.4 (a) of the Act, when the stridhana lands held by

the female member of a family together with the lands held by all the members of the family is in excess of 15 std. acres, the female member

concerned, may hold, in addition to the extent of land, which the family is entitled to hold under sub-S.(1), stridhana lands not exceeding 10 std

acres. In this case, the lands held by the petitioner and the stridhana lands held by the wife of the petitioner exceeds 15 std. acres and, ordinarily,

therefore, the wife may hold an extent of stridhana land not exceeding 10 std acres. However, this is subject to the Proviso under S. 5 (4) (a) of

the Act, by which, if any extent of stridhana land held by a female member is included in the extent of the land, which the family is entitled to hold

under sub-S.(1), is 10 or more std. acres, then, the family member shall not be entitled to hold any stridhana land in addition to the extent so

included, and, where the extent of stridhana land held by a female member so included is less than 10 std. acres, the female member may hold, in

addition to the extent so included, an extent of stridhana land, which, together with the extent so included, shall not exceed 10 std. acres. Earlier, it

has, been seen that the holding of the petitioner and the stridhana holding of the petitioner have all to be deemed to be held by the family under S.5

(2) of the Act and, therefore, the total holding of the family of the petitioner, inclusive of the stridhana land of the wife, would be 26.952 std. acres.

Applying S.5(4)(a) it may appear that the wife of the petitioner is entitled to hold stridhana land, not exceeding 10 std. acres, but that extent is cut

down by the operation of the proviso, referred to earlier. In this case, in order to make up the holding of the petitioner upto the permitted ceiling

limit of 15 std. acres, an extent of 1.106 std. acres from out of the stridhana had of the wife of the petitioner has to be included in the holding of the

petitioner. If so done, the extent of stridhana land, which the wife of the petitioner is entitled to hold under Clause (2) of the Proviso to S.5 (4) (a)

of the Act would be 10 std. acres minus 1.106 std. acres i.e., 8.894 std. acres and no more. Now, applying S.5 (4) (b) of the Act, if the extent of

stridhana land held by the wife of the petitioner, as a member of the family consisting of more than 5 members, is more than 5 std. acres, then she

shall not be deemed to be a member of the family for the purpose of Clause (b) of sub-S.(1). In other words, under S.5 (4) (b) (i) in this case, as

the wife of the petitioner is entitled to hold 8.894 std. acres, as stridhana property, she cannot be deemed to be a member of the family. Therefore,

the family of the petitioner has to be regarded as comprising of six members, inclusive of the petitioner, but excluding his wife. The holding of the

family of the petitioner, though comprising of six members, under S.5(b) of the Act, in this case, would only be 15 std. acres for the petitioner did

not hold land in excess of 15 std. acres, but owned only 13.894 std. acres and the ceiling of the family upto 15 std. acres had been made up by

including an extent of 1,106 acres from out of the stridhana holding of the wife of the petitioner. In other words, the family of the petitioner did not

hold any land in excess of 15 std. acres, and there is, therefore, no question of the family of the petitioner being allowed to hold an additional 5 std.

acres with reference to every member of the family in excess of 5 in terms of S.5 (1) (b) of the Act. Thus, under the provisions of the Act, the

family of the petitioner was entitled to hold 25 std. acres while, the wife of the petitioner was entitled to hold an extent of 8.894 std. acres of

stridhana property, totalling to 23.894 std. acres. The total extent of land owned by the petitioner and the stridhana property owned by his wife

comes to 26.952 std. acres and deducting the permitted ceiling of 15 std. acres, plus 8,894 std. acres of the wife, there is an acquirable surplus of

3.058 std. acres.

It now remains to consider the decision strongly relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioner in Govindasami v. State of Tamil Nadu 91 L.W.

In that case, the husband owned 7.13 std. acres, while, the wife owned stridhana lands of an extent of 15.02 std. acres, totalling to 22.15 std.

acres. In the proceedings initiated under the Act, the authorities proceeded to permit the wife to retain an extent of 10 std. acres as her stridhana

lands and declared 5.02 std. acres out of the stridhana lands, as surplus. The course so adopted by the authorities was held to be erroneous on the

ground that the provisions of the Act do not contemplate the fixation of the ceiling area of a female member holding stridhana lands separately,

merely because, she held lands apart from the lands held by the other members of the family and that S.5 (4) of the Act was in the nature of a

concession given to the female member of a family, and apart from that, stridhana holding cannot be treated independently without reference to the

family and to treat it as such would be untenable under the provisions of the Act. It has also further been pointed out that a female member of a

family, falling under Clause (b) of S.5 (4) shall not be deemed to be a member and not in any other case. In this case, there is no question of any

fixation of ceiling with reference to stridhana holding of the wife of the petitioner separately, for, the computation of the holding of the family had

been done only treating the wife, holding the stridhana lands, initially as a member of the family and subsequently excluding her from the family, by

reason of the operation of S.5 (4) (b) (i) of the Act. The course so adopted by the authorities is consistent with the decision relied on and the

petitioner, therefore, cannot seek to derive any assistance from that decision. Apart from it, it has to be borne in mind that under S.5(1)(b), the

word ''family'' in excess of 5 members where S.5(4)(b)(i) would apply, has to be read as excluding the wife and the benefit of the extra five std.

acres for every member of the family in excess of five, would be applicable with reference to the holding of the family excluding the wife and her

permitted stridhana holding, by the application of S.5 (4) (a) and (b) and, as in this case the wife of the petitioner is deemed to be a member of the

family, and the family of the petitioner though consisting of more than five members, is not entitled to hold any additional extent as such family did

not have any extent at all in excess of 15 std. acres. Therefore, the decision in Govindasami v. State of Tamil Nadu 91 L.W. 615, does not in any

manner advance the case of the petitioner that he is entitled to hold 15 std. acres for the family of five members excluding the wife and an extra 5

std. acres for the sixth member of the family in addition to the stridhana holding of 8.894 std. acres permitted to be held by the wife of the

petitioner, as stridhana lands, under the provisions of the Act. The authorities were, therefore quite right in declaring an extent of 3.06 std. acres as

surplus. There is thus no illegality or irregularity in the orders of the authorities below. Consequently, the civil revision petition fails and is dismissed

with costs.