Ram Piyari vs Ganga Ram

R.S. Pathak, C.J.—This is a Defendant''s second appeal arising out of a suit for permanent injunction.

The Plaintiff alleged that he was the tenant of the Defendant, Smt. Ram Piyari, in the land in suit and that the Defendants were interfering with his lawful possession thereon. The Defendants contested the suit and asserted that the tenancy of the Plaintiff'' had been determined when he surrendered possession in favour of the Defendant Smt. Ram Piyari. Thereafter, it was said, she had accepted the Defendant, Lakhu, as tenant of the land in suit. The trial court framed a number of issues, the first being whether the Plaintiff was the tenant of the land in suit, the second whether the Plaintiff'' had relinquished possession of the land in suit as alleged, and the third was whether the suit was maintainable in its present form. The trial court decreed the suit and granted a permanent injunction.

An appeal by the Defendant, Smt. Ram Piyari, has been dismissed by the lower appellate court. The lower appellate court has held that the Plaintiff did not surrender possession and it was not proved that he had relinquished his rights in the land.

The Defendant, Smt. Ram Piyari, now appeals to this Court.

The findings arrived at by the lower appellate court are findings of fact, and learned Counsel for the appellant has been unable to show that those findings are vitiated in law. Learned Counsel urges, however, that the trial court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit, and 1 am referred to Section 77(3) of the Punjab Tenancy Act. It is the common case of the parties that the Punjab Tenancy Act applies. Section 77(3) of the Act provides:

(3) The following suits shall be instituted in and heard and determined by Revenue Courts, and no other Court shall take cognizance of any such dispute or matter with respect to which any suit might be instituted:

The suits have been classified into three groups, and it is apparent from a perusal of the items in the groups that they refer to suits which proceed on the footing that the parties are landlord and tenant. For example, Clause (a) of the first group refers to a suit between a landlord and a tenant "for enhancement or reduction of rent u/s 24". Clause (d) of the second group speaks of a suit "by a tenant to establish a claim to a right of occupancy, or by a landlord to prove that a tenant has not such a right". Likewise, Clause (n) in the third group refers to a suit by "a landlord for arrears of rent". It is abundantly clear that a suit in which it is disputed that the parties stand in relation to each other as landlord and tenant does not lie within any of the three groups. I am satisfied that the present case does not fall within Section 77(3) of the Act. In Shri Durga Singh of Solan v. Tholu AIR 1970 S.C. 406, the Supreme Court made the following observations in respect of the items in the three groups in Section 77(3):

It would, however, appear that not only items (d) and (e) but every other item in the three groups relates to a dispute between tenants on the one hand and the landlord on the other. There is no entry or item relating to a suit by or against a person claiming to be a tenant and whose status as a tenant is not admitted by the landlord. It would, therefore, be reasonable to infer that the legislature barred only those suits from the cognizance of a civil court where there was no dispute between the parties that a person cultivating land or who was in possession of land was a tenant.

These observations support the opinion to which I have come. Accordingly, the contention raised on behalf of the appellant must be rejected.

The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.