Natesa Pillai vs Mahalinga Padayachi

Anantanarayanan, J.—This revision petition involves a short point, which has some degree of interest. The revision petitioner is the petitioner

before the Revenue Count of Kumbakonam, in an application for resumption of lands for personal cultivation under S. 4-A (2) of the Madras

Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, (Act XXV of 1955). As is well known, S. 4-A declares the right of a landlord to resume possession from a

cultivating tenant of an extent not exceeding one-half of the lands leased out to such tenant, for purposes of his personal cultivation. But this section

is qualified by S. 4-A (5) which is in the following terms :

No person who is not entitled to resume possession under this section on the day the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection (Amerdment) Act,

1956 came into force, shall be deemed to be so entitled by reason of any subsequent change in his circumstances

In the present matter, the cultivating tenant (respondent in the Court below), has been paying rent on this holding as on war am tenure, not merely

to the petitioner but even to his predecessor in title. The petitioner revision pensioner) alleges an oral agreement under which the respondent agreed

to surrender possession on a particular date. But he failed to do so, and this is one of the grounds upon which the revision petitioner attempts to

have the Order of the lower Court set aside. But however this might be, the presiding officer of the Revenue Court found, as a question of fact,

that the petitioner was rot the landlord on the relevant date referred to in S. 4-A (5) set forth by me earlier, and that, in consequence, he was not

entitled to resume possession under S. 4-A (1) of the Act. But, if the matter is to be judged from the stand point of the previous landlord that

landlord was admittedly not entitled to resume possession under S. 4. A because, within the scope of S. 4. A (4), that landlord was disqualified

upon one or more of the grounds staled in that sub-section, as a disqualification for a landlord attempting to resume possession for personal

cultivation. The learned presiding officer observed:

The petitioner who has merely stepped into the shots of that landlord will have to suffer from the disqualification referred to in Cl. 4 of S. 4-A.

This was one ground on which the petition was dismissed.

Learned Counsel for the revision petitioner urges that this ground is fallacious. According to him, the personal disqualifications attaching to the

predecessor-in-title ought not to be considered when a decision is given upon the right of the present petitioner, who admittedly is free from such

disqualification, to resume personal cultivation. With this argument, I am inclined to agree. But the petitioner has clearly to be non-suited with

reference to his application upon a stronger and more cogent ground. S. 4-A (5) explicitly declares that a person who was not entitled to resume

possession on the day the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection (Amendment) Act, 1956, came into force, cannot be subsequently entitled by

reason of any change in the circumstances. Admittedly, the petitioner was not so entitled, because he was not a landlord at all in respect of the

holding on the relevant date. He became subsequently entitled to by virtue of a change in his circumstances, viz., the purchase of this holding, which

entitled him to apply under S. 4-A (1). Hence, within the scope of S. 4-A (5), the petitioner could not sustain this application. ""1 he argument is

that S. 4-A (5) is limited by the language of S. 4-A (4) and that the words ""any subsequent change in his circumstances"" must be interpreted as

referring only to the disqualifications specified in S. 4-A (4). 1 see no reason to interpret S. 4-A (5) in this manner, as the words of the section are

plain and unambiguous. Further, the Legislature has not used other qualifying words, which would restrict the application of the section as it stands.

It is a well understood cannon of interpretation of statutes, which has even recently been affirmed by the Supreme Court in Sri Ram Ram Narain

Medhi Vs. The State of Bombay, , that where the words of a statute are plain and unambiguous, and can be given effect to as they stand, it is not

permissible for the Court to import other phraseology of restriction or qualification which has not been used. Consequently, I am of the view that

the order of the learned presiding officer of the Revenue Court is correct, though not wholly upon the reasoning set forth in that order.

With regard to the surrender, upon the record this seems to merely amount to a promise to surrender possession, which would ordinarily be

enforceable under the civil law. But, undoubtedly, it will not affect the right of the cultivating tenant to remain in possession of his holding without

eviction under Madras Act XXV of 1955; this proposition is undeniable, and admits of no controversy or dispute.

There is another ground of justification for the order of the lower Court, viz., that the petitioner applied for cultivation of this extent upon pannai,

which ordinarily means hired labour. But S. 2 (ec) defines personal cultivation as cultivation where the person ""contributes his own physical labour

or that of the members of his family in the cultivation of that land."" However, I am not deciding the application upon this point, since it appears to

me that the application is very clearly precluded upon the facts, by virtue of the language of S. 4-A (5) already referred to. In the result, therefore,

the revision petition fails and is dismissed, But since this might very probably have been a bona fide attempt on the part of this petitioner to obtain

possession of the holding that he had purchased, for the purpose of direct cultivation, and he himself does not appear to be a landlord possessed of

more appreciable properties, I direct that the parties shall bear their own costs.