V. Dharmalinga Moopanar vs Anusamba Bi-trust and others

Rajagopala Ayyangar, J.—These petitions raise for consideration a very interesting and important question as to the scope of the Tanjore

Tenants and Pannaiyal Protection Act of 1952. I shall first refer to the facts in W.P. No. 487 of 1955. The tenant who is the petitioner here was

allowed into possession for the cultivation season for fasli 1363 under a lease deed dated 14th June 1953 whose duration was one year. On the

expiry of this term, the petitioner was threatened with eviction by the landowner. He, thereupon applied under S. 13 (1) of the Act to the

Conciliation Officer for determining the dispute between himself and the landowner. An objection was raised by the landowner that the tenant

having been let into possession after 23rd August 1952. when the Tanjore Tenants and Pannaiyal Protection Act, XIV of 1952. came into force

the Act was not applicable to determine his rights and the petition under S. 13 was not competent and that the Conciliation Officer had no

jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the dispute. The contention was that Madras Act XIV of 1952 conferred certain statutory rights only upon two

classes of cultivating tenants (1) those who had been in possession on the first of December 1951 but had lost possession before 23rd August

1952 and who were entitled to be restored to possession and to the benefit of the statutory terms of tenancy under S. 6 of the Act, and (2) those

who were in possession on 23rd August 1952. On this basis it was urged that the rights of persons who were inducted as tenants for the purpose

of cultivation after 23rd August 1952, would be governed by their respective contracts in the light of the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act

and that they would not be entitled to the advantages or the benefit of the machinery provided by the Madras Act XIV of 1952. This interpretation

of the provisions was accepted by the Conciliation Officer and on appeal by the Revenue Court and it is the correctness of this view that is

challenged in this petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution. As the Tribunals below have declined jurisdiction on their interpretation of the relevant

statutory provisions it is clear that if the construction were erroneous the petitioner would be entitled to have those orders quashed and an enquiry

directed.

I shall now consider the scope of the legislative provisions with reference to the terms of the relevant sections. Before doing so, I shall have to

put out of account a circumstance which has been mentioned by the Conciliation Officer and which formed part of his reasoning, based upon the

historical background which led to the passing of the Madras Act XIV of 1952. This background was derived from the preamble to the Act. The

preamble recites that in the District of Tanjore relations between landowners and their agents on the one hand and tenants and farm labourers on

the other had become strained resulting in the displacement of tenants and that this rendered it necessary for the legislature to intervene. From this

statement the inference drawn by the Tribunals be low was that the Act was designed to protect only those who had previously thereto suffered at

the lands of the landowners or those who being then in possession were likely to suffer from such action and that the tenants who came in later

were outside the purview of the legislation. I consider this reasoning unsafe and not capable of leading to any definite result for the primary purpose

of the legislation was to put fetters upon the contractual rights of the landholder, which according to the framers of the enactment, were being

misused. There was no reason why such action should not be restrained or those fetters imposed for the protection of an identical class of persons

emerging at a later date. It was not as if the legislature signed out a particular category of individuals and conferred rights on them intending to deny

to others, similar rights, notwithstanding that their economic situation and their position vis a vis the landlord were exactly the same and they

occupied an identical position in the country''s economy. It is for this reason that I am putting aside as nearly irrelevant the light sought to be

derived from the words of the preamble and this is precisely why I consider that it is necessary to advert primarily to the language of the operative

provisions for determining the scope of the enactment.

Another line of reasoning of the Conciliation Officer and the Revenue Court for arriving at their conclusion was based on a construction of S. 6.

They held that S. 6 and the Act as a whole contemplated and provided benefits only to two classes of tenants (1) those who were in possession on

1st December 1951 but not in possession on 23rd August 1952 and (2) those in possession of their holding on 23rd August 1952.

A close examination of S. 6, however, would show that it provides for three sets of cultivating tenants: (a) those who were in possession on 1st

December 1951 and who continued to remain in possession on the date of the Act-these having subject to the provisions of the Act. a right to

continue till 1957-58; (b) those Who were in possession on 1st December 1951 but not in possession on 23rd August 1952. This class had a right

to be restored to possession of the land evicting even a cultivating tenant let in meanwhile and (c) those who were in possession during the

agricultural year 1950-51 but not in possession on 1st December 1951 having a qualified right to be restored to possession, the qualification being

that no cultivating tenant was let into possession of the holding before 1st December 1951. There are the only three classes of tenants for whom

specific provision is made by S. 6. If the matter rested there the case of the cultivating tenants who were not in possession during 1950-5 I but

came in subsequently would appear to have been unprovided. In other words, those who not having been in possession on the dates specified in S.

6 (1) and (2) were in possession on 23rd August 1952 would not be protected. This should suffice to indicate that the Tribunals below are in error

in holding that S. 6 had provided for the two categories of cultivating tenants I have mentioned earlier.

In my judgment the proper way of reading the enactment is to regard S. 7 as the pivotal provision in relation to cultivating tenants not with

standing that it factually occurs after S. 6 and to read S. 6 as a rider to or an extension of this main provision in relation to a defined anterior

period. S. 8 is really a part of S. 7 defining the quantum of the statutory fair rent, the function of S. 10 being to set out the obligations of tenants and

the legal consequences of breaches on their part together with the machinery for the enforcement thereof.

The matter may be put in slightly different form in the following analysis. S. 7 provides the statutory terms on which ""every cultivating tenant

shall hold the land. The tense used is present and the present tense does not exclude the prospective. Cultivating tenant is defined in S. 2 (d) to

mean ""a person who contributes his own physical labour in the cultivation of any land belonging to another under a tenancy agreement"", to set out

only the words which are material in the present context. The terms upon which a cultivating tenant of this type is to hold the lands are to be found

in the several Sub-Cls. (a) to (g) of S. 7. S. 8 is explanatory of the term as to rent in S. 7. S. 9 makes provision for written evidence of the

tenancy. The obligations cast on tenants on whom rights are conferred by S. 7 are enforced by the provision as to eviction in the event of their non-

observance. Vide S. 10. If the opening words of S. 7 stood without further statutory expansion, they would not include persons who had once

cultivated the lands but had ceased to do so on 23rd August 1952 but would take in all cultivating ''tenants then on the lands and in my opinion also

every cultivating tenant who might be inducted thereafter, for, there are no words in S. 7 excluding the latter class. The words ""every cultivating

tenant"" with which this section opens are, however, incapable of comprehending any persons who were not cultivating tenants on the date of the

enactment for even the definition of a cultivating tenant in S. 2 (d) uses only the present tense and would not therefore include a cultivating tenant

who had cultivated long before the enactment There were, however, classes of cultivating tenants who had once cultivated but had ceased to

cultivate by reason of what the law considered to be unjust eviction It was to meet this special class of cases that S. 6 was designed. This provision

brought within its fold cultivating tenants who were in possession of the lands in the agricultural season of 1950-51 or on the first of December

1951, thus projecting pro tanto the Act backwards to the date named The other Sub-sections of S. 6 provided that machinery by which the rights

of these quondam cultivating tenants could be enforced as also the conditions subject to which they could be granted their rights. This in brief is the

scheme of the enactment.

The opening words of S. 7, viz., ""Every cultivating tenant"" afford statutory protection to every cultivating tenant and a tenant is not the less a

cultivating tenant within those words, because he was not in possession of the land on 23rd August 1952. The language employed is perfectly

general and is by no means restricted to conferring rights upon cultivating tenants in possession on any particular date. Though there is a

presumption against a Statute having retrospective operation without specific provision therefore and that is the function of S. 6; there is no

presumption that a statute applies only to a state of things on the date of the Act and not prospectively, if a person were a cultivating tenant as

defined in S. 2 (d) the statute in S. 7 sets out the conditions which govern his tenure. If the definition of cultivating tenant in S. 2 (d) which also uses

the present tense, were read into the opening words of S. 7, that section would read:

Every person who contributes his own physical labour in the cultivation of any land belonging to another and under a tenancy agreement express or

implied shall hold the land on the following terms.

No difficulty is caused in treating this as including cultivating tenants inducted subsequent to 23rd August 1952 by reason of the provision as to

duration of the tenancy, because under S. 7 (1) the statutory tenancy is terminated by efflux of time only at the end of the period of five years

referred to in S. 6, which means that it lasts until the commencement of the agricultural year 1957-58. This construction which in my judgment is

the only reasonable one of the enactment, is not contradicted by the language of the other sections. For instance Ss. 8, 9 and 10 on their language

would apply as much to cultivating tenants in possession of their holdings on 23rd August 1952 as to those who were inducted subsequently. Apart

from this there is no reason why, when the statute enacts terms in respect of persons who are cultivating tenants between 1952-53 and 1957-58

persons who come in at an intermediate period of time should not have the benefit of the statutory terms subject, of course, to the termination of

the statutory term after 1957-58.

This construction is more than reinforced by a reference to the corresponding provisions in relation to pannaiyals who are the other class of

persons engaged in agriculture for whom parallel provisions are made. Take for instance S. 11 which determines the fair wage payable to

pannaiyals. It cannot be that these wages could be demanded only by the pannaiyals actually in employment on 23rd August 1952 but that in the

case of persons employed subsequently, the contractual rate is enforceable even though this might be less than what is provided under S. 11. S. 12

also could not in its language be restricted in its application to pannaiyals in employment under a particular landholder on the date of the enactment

but it would apply equally to govern the relations of such agricultural labourers whose employment under any particular landowner commenced

after 23rd August 1952.

If the above is the resonable construction of the provisions contained in Ss. 11 to 12, the other set of Ss. 7 to 10 should receive a similar

interpretation in which event alone they could harmonise with each other and constitute an integrated piece of legislation. If so read it follows that S.

13 which is common to tenants, and pannaiyals and would be read as clothing the Conciliation Officer with authority to decide disputes not merely

between persons who are landowner and cultivating tenant or pannaiyal on the date of the Act but also those with reference to persons between

whom such relationship springs into existence after the enactment. The perfectly general language of S. 10 prohibits evictions of cultivating tenants

otherwise than for reasons specified in that section making no distinction between the tenants restored to possession under S. 6 and those who

were cultivating tenants on the date of the enactment as also those who might be inducted later on would appear to reinforce the conclusion which I

have drawn from an independent examination of the other provisions of the enactment.

In my judgment the Tanjore Tenants and Pannaiyal Protection Act was applicable to and governed the rights of the present applicant before

the Conciliation Officer. The applicant was entitled to have his application considered and adjudicated upon by the Conciliation Officer under S.

13 of the Act. The orders of the Conciliation Officer and the revenue Court refusing to do so are therefore, set aside, the rule being made absolute.

The Conciliation Officer will proceed with the application and dispose of it in accordance with law. In view of the point raised not being

covered by any earlier authority of this Court, there will be no order as to costs of this writ petition. W. P. No. 632 of 1955:-This is also an

application by a tenant invoking the assistance of the Conciliation Officer under S. 13 of the Madras Act XIV of 1952. The applicant, alleged that

he had been in possession of the land on 1st December 1951 whereas the case of the landowner who resisted the application was that the tenant

had been inducted into the land subsequent to 23rd August 1952. The Conciliation Officer and the revenue Court upheld the contentions of the

tenant and held that he had been cultivating the lands on 1st December, 1951. The landlord who is the second respondent in the other writ petition

viz., W. P. No. 487 of 1955, has filed the present petition challenging the findings of the Tribunals below on the ground that their orders were

vitiated by an error apparent on the face of the record. In view of the conclusion which I have reached at to the scope of the Act in W. P. No. 487

of 1955 it is unnecessary to deal with W. P. No. 632 of 1955 on its merits, because it is admitted that the respondent-tenant, was let into

possession as a tenant by the landlord subsequent to 23rd August 1952. It follows that the writ petition tails and has to be dismissed. It is

accordingly dismissed and the rule is discharged but in the circumstances ''without any order as to costs.