AMBALAL PURSHOTTAMDAS KACHHIA Vs. CHIMANBHAI SHIVABHAI ALIAS BHAGWANDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) S. No. 404 of village Vaso Taluka Nadiad District Kaira belongs to the opponent. It admeasures 1 acre-20 gunthas. A portion of the said land admeasuring about 1264 sd. yards in respect of which permission for non-agricultural use was obtained was let to the petitioner. The said portion of the land will be referred to as the suit land or disputed land in the course of this judgment. The tenancy of the petitioner in respect of the suit land was terminated by a notice and a civil suit was filed against the petitioner by the opponent for eviction. In the said suit the petitioner contended that he was an artisan in occupation of a dwelling house built by him at his own expense on the suit land and that he could not be evicted from such dwelling house and the land immediately appurtenant thereto except in accordance with the provisions of sec. 16 read with sec. 18 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and that therefore the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to entertain and try the suit. The petitioner contended that an issue should be raised covering the aforesaid plea and that such issue should be referred to the Tenancy Court for its decision. In the course of the said proceeding the Civil Court referred the following issue to the Tenancy Court under sec. 85A of the Act:

(2.) Sec. 18 of the Act reads as under:

(3.) Two questions arise for consideration in the context of the above statutory position and the facts and circumstances of the case. First whether the petitioner is an artisan within the meaning of sec. 18 and secondly whether he is in occupation of any dwelling house constructed by him at his own expense on a site belonging to the opponent. On both the points as earlier stated the Tribunal found against him. Be it noted that the word partisan is not defined in the Act. The Tribunal following its earlier decision held that to come within the purview of the term artisan a person must be a mechanic or handicrafts man who has by his avocation done some work connected with or useful for agriculture and such work must be his main occupation requiring use of his personal manual art or skill and is useful for agriculture. The question is whether this test applied by the Tribunal is justified by the statutory language.