AKKAVVA Vs. BASANAGOUDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision is preferred under the provisions of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) against the decision of the appellate authority constituted for Belgaum District The appeal stood transmitted to the said authority on account of the amendment made to the Act. The appellant before the authority was the writ petitioner in this Court earlier before the amendment. In the writ petition, he had challenged the finding recorded by the Land Tribunal, Bailhongal in Belgaum rejecting his application for occupancy rights in respect of certain agricultural lands of which he claimed to be the tenant. The main ground urged was that the Tribunal erred in rejecting the application for registration of occupancy rights under Sec. 48A of the Act despite the admission of Akkavva, the alleged landlord, that she had allowed the land to be cultivated by him on payment of Rs. 600/- which she had borrowed for the sake of providing medical assistance to her ailing husband.

(2.) In addition to the grounds urged in the writ petition it is apparent from the order under revision that the appellate authority has permitted the parties to lead oral and documentary evidence before it. Appreciating that evidence and essentially relying upon the admission made by the petitioner before the Land Tribunal while giving her statement which she admitted to be correct before the appellate authority when she examined herself as the first witness for respondent, the appellate authority has come to the conclusion that the Tribunal erred in ignoring the admission rejecting the occupancy rights prayed for by the appellant before the appellate authority. In that view of the matter, they have declared that he was the tenant of the land and he is entitled to be registered as an occupant of the same.

(3.) In this Court it is urged by Mr. U. R. Malimath that the appellate authority erred in ignoring the evidence as well as the records, particularly the record of right extracts produced before it. It clearly, in the column provided for showing the owner's name, showed the name of one Aralannavar who was none other than the brother-in-law of Akkavva the 1st respondent before the appellate authority. It is also in evidence that there was a partition between Aralannavar and his brother Devendrappa at some time previously. But that partition has not been established by any cogent evidence either before the Tribunal or before the appellate authority. If there was a partition then they were duty bound to have the same mutated in the record of rights.