AYAMMED Vs. PARAMESWARAN NAMBOODIRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners who were applicants for an order of purchase of the Landlord's right under S.72F, Land Reforms Act challenge the judgment of the Appellate Authority (Land Reforms), Kozhikode reversing on appeal, the decision of the Land Tribunal allowing their application. The challenge is rested primarily on the ground that in the appeal which was taken from the final order on their application the Appellate Authority had no jurisdiction to reverse the preliminary order finding the petitioners to be tenants, owing to the failure of respondents 1 and 2 to appeal from the preliminary order and secondarily on the merits of the findings.

(2.) The petitioners filed the application in 1971 and on 7-8-1972 the Land Tribunal gave a preliminary "decision", under R.9(1) of the Land Reforms (Vesting and Assignment) Rules holding that the petitioners are cultivating tenants under respondents 1 and 2. Subsequently on 25-9-1972, the Land Tribunal passed the final order under R.10, read with S.72F(5) of the Act. It was from this order that respondents 1 and 2 preferred their appeal to the Appellate Authority, though they challenged the preliminary decision also in the memorandum of appeal. The Appellate Authority reversed the decision of the Land Tribunal holding that the petitioners are cultivating tenants and dismissed their application. The more important of the two questions raised in the revision, as indicated earlier, relates to the power of the Appellate Authority in an appeal from the final order, to reverse a preliminary decision from which no appeal had been filed.

(3.) To view of Chellappan v. Kalyani, 1975 KLT 187 , which has been approved by another Division Bench in Abraham v. Joseph, 1975 KLT 658 , which was concerned with the analogous preliminary order under R.81 of Land Reforms (Tenancy) Rules on the status of the applicant as a kudi kidappukaran), it is now settled that a preliminary decision under R.9(1) of the Assignment Rules is an appealable order. From this counsel for the petitioners argued that as no appeal had been filed from the preliminary decision within the time allowed by law, it was not liable to be challenged or interfered with in the appeal taken from the final order. It was said that the preliminary decision is, as was observed in Abraham's case, 1975 KLT 658, just like a preliminary decree in a civil suit and that accordingly on the principle underlying S.97, CPC. the omission to appeal from the preliminary decision will preclude the aggrieved party from disputing its correctness in the appeal which may be preferred from the final order.