KESAVA MENON Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Application of certain provisions of S.82 of the Land Reforms Act, I of 1964, has to be considered in these two Revision Petitions. That section, so far as is relevant here, reads:

(2.) The matter arises in this way: One Kesava Menon who has two wives owns extensive lands. While he has no issue through his first wife he has issues through the second but their number is not more than four. In the statement he filed under S.85(2) of the Act regarding excess lands he treated his two wives as members of two different families and named the first wife as a member of his family. The Taluk Land Board treated his first wife as a member of his family and fixed the ceiling area of his lands accordingly as for one family, namely 14.91 acres, and directed him to surrender the excess portion of 67.44 acres. It is the correctness of that order that is challenged in these revision petitions, one of which is filed by Kesava Menon and his two wives and the other by the heirs of a transferee of some of his lands.

(3.) If a person has two wives, including them and bis children through them, as a matter of fact in the ordinary sense there is only one family. But Explanation I has introduced a fiction by which he is allowed to treat the two wives with their children as constituting two separate families. Along with the granting of that privilege a restriction is also placed by the Explanation. The restriction is that he can be a member of only one of such families to be chosen by him and not of both the families simultaneously. That the husband can be a member of only one of the families is an integral part of the Explanation. While sub-s.(1) has fixed the ceiling area sub-s.(2) has prescribed the lands to be taken into account in calculating the ceiling area of a family. Sub-s.(2) says that in calculating the lands owned by a family those owned individually and jointly by the members of that family should be taken into account and Explanation I is an explanation to the entire section including sub-s.(2). The result is that although notionally the second wife of Kesava Menon and her issues constitute a separate family, as he is not a member of that family his lands cannot be taken into account in fixing the ceiling area of that family. Otherwise it would lead to the absurd consequence of having to take into account the lands of a stranger to a family also in fixing the ceiling of that family. If the husband cannot be a member of both the families at the same time it inevitably follows that his lands can be taken into account only in calculating the ceiling area of the family to which he is deemed to belong. It was the same conclusion that was reached by our learned brother, Viswanatha Iyer J, in Kuttan v. State of Kerala and Others, 1976 KLT 49 . In the present case the Taluk Land Board was right in fixing the ceiling area of the lands held by Kesava Menon as 14.91 acres and directing him to surrender 67.44 acres as excess land.