KUNHIRAMAN Vs. KUNHI KANARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are three petitions under Art.226 of the Constitution, in which, one of the questions pertaining to jurisdiction is common and which may therefore be disposed of by this judgement, although the parties in them are different. In each of these cases, one of the claimants to a tenancy right, invoked the jurisdiction of the Tahsildar against his rival claimant, under S.7A of the Kerala Stay of Eviction Proceedings Act, 1957, Act I of 1957, as amended by the Kerala Stay of Eviction Proceedings (Amendment) Act, 1958, Act XXX of 1958, the landlord being no party to the dispute or to the proceeding. Before the Tahsildar, the opposing party in each case, objected to his jurisdiction to act under S.7A in a dispute between rival claimants to the tenancy, but he overruled the objection. Though Act I of 1957, as amended, has now been repealed by the Kerala Agrarian Relations Act, 1960, Act IV of 1961, the orders impugned having been passed by the Tahsildar under S.7A, and being in force, these petitions have been filed to quash them.

(2.) Under S.7A, the dispute must of course relate to the right to cultivate the land. The jurisdictional objection was that such dispute must be between the landlord on the one hand and the tenant on the other, but that a dispute which is solely between persons setting up rival claims to the tenancy, is outside the purview of the section. The plain reading of S.7A(1) does not lend support to this objection, for it only reads:

(3.) But it was argued, that the object underlying Act I of 1957, as disclosed by its preamble, which is "to take immediate action to provide for the temporary protection of tenants .........." must control the interpretation of the section.