AMMU BRAHMANI Vs. GOPALAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants are the plaintiffs in the suit from which this second appeal arises. The properties scheduled to the plaint in the suit belonged to the family of the husband of first plaintiff. There was an earlier suit for partition of the assets of this family O. S. 134/1114 (M. E.) of the District Court, Trichur. During the pendency of the suit a Receiver appointed by the court was in management of the properties involved in the litigation. The properties, now the subject matter of the present suit had been leased out by the Receiver to one Velappan on an aggregate rent of 57 paras of paddy and one bunch of bananas per year. During the pendency of the partition suit, first plaintiff's husband bad died and the plaintiffs in the present action had been impleaded as his legal heirs in the partition suit. By the decree in the partition suit, which was finally confirmed in appeal on 27-10-1958, the properties had been set apart to these persons.

(2.) After the death of the original lessee from the Receiver, Velappan, the first respondent herein, the defendant in the suit came into possession of the properties holding the same under the same lease arrangement. He filed on 22-5-1961 an application for fixation of fair rent before the Land Tribunal, Trichur as O. A. 3566 of 1961. This application filed under the Kerala Agrarian Relation Act was subsequently renumbered as O.A. 1767/64, after coming into force of the Kerala Land Reforms Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The appellants here resisted the proceedings before the Land Tribunal contending that the applicant being a tenant from a Receiver appointed by court, he is not entitled to get fixation of fair rent in the nature of the exemption granted in respect of such class of tenants under S.3(iv) of the Act. This contention was accepted by the Land Tribunal and the fair rent application dismissed. Thereafter, the present suit, of which the appeal arises, was filed by the plaintiffs for recovery of possession of properties from the defendant with past and future mesne profits.

(3.) The defendant took up the plea that his lease was even prior to the partition suit and he is entitled to fixity of tenure and other rights under the Act. It was also contended that he had directly attorned as a lessee to the plaintiffs who were hence disentitled to deny his right as a lessee.