Pitchai Ammal and Another vs Sankara Muthia Pillai and Others

Anantanarayanan, J.—These revision proceedings arose from petitions by a landlord claiming to resume cultivation of his holding to the

permitted extent u/s 4-A(2) of the Madras Cultivating Tenants'' Protection Act (Act XXV) of 1955. In both these proceedings the Revenue

Divisional Officer, Dindigul, held that Section 4-A(1) of the Act must be considered as qualified by Section 4-A(3), so that the tenant is entitled to

be in possession of the land under the terms of Section 4-A(3). The only ground canvassed in both the revision petitions was that this view was

erroneous, and that Section 4-A(2) conferred upon the landlord an absolute right to resume, not affected by Section 4-A(3), provided the other

conditions of Section 4-A were satisfied.

The matter came up before Kunhamed Kutti, J., and the learned Judge directed that the proceedings might be placed before My Lord the Chief

Justice for being put before a Bench, in view of the apparent conflict in the decisions in Thayammal v. Karuppanna ILR (1961) Mad. 900 and C.

Rajammal Vs. V.P. Chinnakannu Ambalam, , to which decisions, I shall presently make reference. It is thus that the matter now comes up before

us.

As far as Section 4-A(1) and Section 4-A(3) are concerned, the apparent conflict between which is the content of the revision proceedings, I

shall presently show that the consensus of view in this Court has been that there is no conflict, and that the sections are perfectly reconcilable with

each other, the right granted u/s 4-A(1) is subject to the over-riding rights of a cultivating tenant u/s 4-A(3) to continue in possession on payment

of the contractual rent. It is noteworthy that in Thayammal v. Karuppanna ILR (1961) Mad. 900, Kailasam, J., did not differ from the earlier view

adopted by this Court on two relevant occasions, as far as this interpretation is concerned. On the contrary, he agreed with those views. But he

expressed the view that Section 4-A(4), in his opinion, gave a separate right to a landlord to resume cultivation, to the extent permitted by that

Sub-section, which was not qualified by the provisions of Section 4-A(3) of the Act. It is this matter which has now to be determined in the light of

the authorities.

The apparent conflict between Section 4-A(1) and Section 4-A(3) came up for decision before this Court in C. Rajammal Vs. V.P.

Chinnakannu Ambalam, which is a judgment of my Lord, the Chief Justice, This Court had then to deal with the interpretation of these sections in

the light of the argument advanced that a literal interpretation of Section 4-A(3) of the Act giving the same meaning to the term cultivating tenant as

in Sub-Section 1 of the section might render nugatory the very provisions of the section and the right conferred on the landlord as well as

machinery set up to enforce that right. Dealing with this aspect this Court had occasion to point out that, on the basis of the principles of the

interpretation of statutes as enunciated in several authorities, it was permissible to depart from a literal adherence to the words of the enactment,

where such adherence would result in absurdity, inconvenience or injustice. After an analysis of the provisions, in the light of those authorities, the

conclusions were expressed in the following form:

If Section 4-A(3) is limited to those cultivating tenants who would be entitled to the benefits of the Fair Rent Act, there will be no conflict between

Section 4-A(1) and Section 4-A(3) of the Act. On the other hand, there will be a happy correlation of the provisions with less injustice to the

landlord and the greater opportunity to effectively carry out the intention of the Legislature, as expressed in Section 4-A(1).

If I may be permitted to convey the argument thus expressed by my Lord, the Chief Justice, in another form, the point here is that the Legislature

was intending to mitigate, as far as the landlord was concerned, the rigours of the law which gave the cultivating tenant the advantage of seeking a

fair rent, which might be far less than the contractual obligation. Where such an advantage might accrue to a cultivating tenant, the Legislature

thought it fit to extend the benefit of a resumption of the holding, or its part to the landlord within the terms of Section 4-A(1). But Section4-A(3)

enacted that where the tenant was willing to pay rent at the contractual rate itself, without attempting to obtain the benefits of the fair rent legislation,

the tenant should be permitted to continue in possession of the holding and to pay that rent, without the right of the landlord to resume for his own

cultivation any part of his holding.

As pointed out by Kailasam, J., in Thayammal v. Karuppanna ILR (1961) Mad. 900, upon an almost identical line of reasoning, the same

conclusion was arrived at by Rajagopalan, J., in Civil Revision Petition No. 137 of 1959. The relevant part of the judgment is extracted in the

above decision and the following sentences will be sufficient to indicate the main trend of the argument:

Of course, but for Section 4-A(3) the right conferred by Section 4-A(1) on the landlord would be absolute.... But Section 3(7) of Act XXIV of

1956 specifically saved the operation of Sub-section (3) of Section 4-A of Act XXV of 1955, the scope of which I have already explained. Thus

in return for the right of receiving the contract rate of rent unaffected by the provisions of Act XXIV of 1956 the landlord''s right of resumption, for

which Sub-section (1) of Section 4-A provided, would become unenforceable, if the tenant exercises the right conferred upon him by Sub-section

(3) of Section 4-A. That was what happened in this case.

I may here add that Kailasam, J., has observed after setting forth this extract:

I most respectfully agree with the observations of the learned Judge....

Thus, there is consensus of view in this Court that the right conferred by Section 4-A(1) is qualified by Section 4-A(3), and is not an absolute right,

independent of the offer of the cultivating tenant to pay at the contractual rate and not to seek the benefits of the fair rent legislation.

That would really conclude the content of these Revision Petitions. I find that the Court below has been somewhat concerned with the language

of Section 4-A(1) notwithstanding anything contained in any other provision of this Act, and that this is also one of the grounds urged in Revision.

But this argument really gives us no difficulty, for obviously that language refers to other contexts and other provisions of the Act formulating the

right of the cultivating tenant to remain in possession of the holding without eviction by the landlord, obviously the words do not apply to other

Sub-sections of Section 4-A itself. It could be shown that a contrary argument is manifestly untenable. For, if a contrary view to be adopted, the

right of the landlord to resume cultivation would be unaffected not merely by Section 4-A(3), but by the specific ceilings and exceptions enacted in

Section 4-A(4), and that is clearly against the statute. But the problem still remains whether Section 4-A(4) enacts a separate right of the landlord

to resume cultivation of his holding, within the terms of that Sub-section; which is not affected by Section 4-A(3) at all.

In giving his view that Section 4-A(4) did enact such a separate right, Kailasam, J., indicated two main grounds in support of his interpretation.

The first was that the intention of the framers of the Act could not have been to exclude the landlord, and particularly the landlord who might be

justly termed a very small proprietor, from cultivating even one cent of land. The learned Judge observed that that would be the result if Section 4-

A(3) is held to qualify Section 4-A(4). The learned Judge also thought that the numerical order of the Sub-sections was not wholly without

significance; he pointed out that Section 4-A(3) came after Section 4-A(1) and before Section 4-A(4).

A careful study of Section 4-A(4) of the Act no doubt shows that certain ceilings are specified and certain exceptions enacted, with regard to

the right of a landlord to resume cultivation of any part of his holding. Finally, Section 4-A(4) enacts that nothing in Sub-Section 1 should be

deemed to confer on the landlord a right to resume possession of a greater extent than that which, along with the extent he is already in possession

of either as owner or as tenant or as both would make up an extent of five acres of wet land. But there is nothing in this Sub-section to show that

the Legislature intended thereby either to enact a separate right of resumption of cultivation, apart from Section 4-A(1) or to enact a right which is

not qualified by the right given to the cultivating tenant u/s 4-A(3) to remain undisturbed in possession of the holding, so long he pays rent at the

contractual rate. It must be observed that the initial situation is not one wherein the small proprietor is in possession of his entire holding, and some

enactment compels him to carve out a lease in favour of the tenant or some one else; but the initial situation is one in which there is already a lease

under the common law, and the object of the legislation (Madras Act XXV of 1955) being to protect cultivating tenants from eviction, the question

is whether a restricted right of resumption for cultivation should not be given to small proprietors, as the law permits such cultivating tenants not

merely to remain un evicted, but also to have the fair rent fixed which might be far less than the contract rate. In this view of the law, we are unable

to see anything strange or anything which calls for comment in the fact that Section 4-A(3) qualifies not merely Section 4-A(1) but also Section 4-

A(4), both of which obviously have to be read together for this purpose. Nor can any significance be seen in the numerical order of the Sub-

sections. On the contrary, there is much to be said for the view that a more elegant drafting of Section 4-A itself, would have been to place Section

4-A(4) below Section 4-A(1) and not below Section 4-A(3) of the Act.

Hence, we are of the view that the right of a landlord to resume cultivation of a part of his holding has to be gleaned from both Section 4-A(1)

and Section 4-A(4). When these are read together, and subject to the exceptions enunciated in Section 4-A(4), that right is qualified by the right of

the cultivating tenant to remain in possession of the entire holding, so long as he is willing to pay the rent at the contract rate under tie common law,

without attempting to avail himself of the advantages of the fair rent legislation for half the property (Section 4-A(3)). With regard to the other half,

of course, the cultivating tenant cannot be prevented from obtaining redress under the special enactment with regard to the rent payable by him. In

this interpretation of the intendment of the Legislature in enacting the several Sub-sections, there is nothing which is against the declared policy of

the Act itself, or against any principle of natural justice. We are hence constrained to hold that the view adopted by Kailasam J., in Thayammal v.

Karuppanna ILR (1961) Mad. 900, with regard to the effect of Section 4-A(4) cannot be upheld. It follows that the Revision Petitions fail and

they are dismissed. But there will be no order as to costs.