Ramchandra Ballal vs Dattatraya Vishnu

Lawrence Jenkins, C.J.—This is a suit for possession, plaintiffs being some of the whole body of Khots interested.

The ground on which possession is sought is that by purporting to transfer by way of sale her occupancy rights, the defendant No. 1 resigned the land within the meaning of Section 10 of Bombay Act I of 1880 with the result that the land is at the disposal of the Khot as khoti land free of all enoumbrauces.

It is conceded before us that unless this transfer can be created as a resignation of the laud, the plaintiffs case must fail.

In our opinion when one transfers land to another on a sale-deed, he cannot according to the ordinary usage of language be said to have resigned the land.

But the matter is made clear by the provisions of Section 10.

It is thereby enacted that " if a privileged occupant resigned land, the land so resigned shall be at the disposal of the Khot."

But a privileged occupant includes a dharekari and quasi dharekari and an occupancy tenant (sub-Section 5 of Section 3 of the Act.)

And u/s 9 the rights of dlutrekuris and quasi dharekarls are expressly made transferable, so that if we were to accept the argument which the respondent is compelled to place before us, we should have the result that while Section 9 would enable a dharekari and a quasi dharekari to transfer, he would on exercising the right of transfer so conferred on him place his land at the disposal of the Khot by virtue of Section 10.

This obviously cannot have been intended; and so we are of opinion that by transferring his land on sale an occupant does not resign his land within the meaning of Section 10.

As this admittedly disposes of the case adversely to the plaintiffs, we must reverse the decree of the lower appellate Court and dismiss the suit with costs throughout.