B RAJEEVI R HEGDE Vs. THYAMPANNA SHETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The landowner is the revision petitioner. The first respondent herein had filed a petition for purchase of the revision petitioner's right, title and interest under S.72B of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963, Act 1 of 1964, as amended by Act 35 of 1969 (the Act). The Tribunal allowed the application by its order dated 24-6-1976 as prayed for. The appeal filed against that order was dismissed by the Appellate Authority (Land Reforms), Cannanore, by its judgment dated 5-12-1980 confirming the order of the Land Tribunal; hence this revision under S.103 of the Act.

(2.) Sri. U. P. Kunikullaya, the counsel for the revision petitioner, submitted that the Land Tribunal and the Appellate Authority went wrong in allowing the purchase of the right, title and interest of the petitioner (landowner) inasmuch as, according to him, there was no tenancy with respect to the land subsisting between the revision petitioner or his predecessor in interest on the one hand, and the 1st respondent on the other. It was submitted by Sri. Kunikullaya that under Ext. D1 will dated 15-7-1930, executed by one Kinhanna Naik, neither the revision petitioner nor his predecessor in interest, Ramayya Shetty and Shamanna Shetty, had absolute right in the property, as under Ext. D1 will all of them derived a life interest alone in the land, and the respondents claiming tenancy created by the revision petitioner's predecessors, could not invoke the provisions of S.53 to 72S of the Act in view of the clear provisions contained in the proviso to clause (vi) of sub-s.(1) of S.3 of the Act. Clause (vi) of sub-s.(1) of S.3 with the relevant proviso reads:

(3.) The submission made by Sri. P. G. Rajagopalan, the counsel for the first respondent in the revision petition, on the other hand, is that the definite case of the first respondent was that he and his predecessor in interest had been holding the land for not less than 50 years honestly believing themselves to be cultivating tenants of the land and, therefore by virtue of the provisions contained in S.7 of the Act, he was entitled to invoke S.72B of the Act. S.7 so far as it is material for this case provides: