SANNA RAGHAVA REDDY Vs. THE STATE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petition raises an important question under the Madras Public Trusts (Regulation of Administration of Agricultural Lands) Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The petitioner had taken a lease of an extent of 87 -05 acres of agricultural and pasture lands in Vallur Village, Ponneri Taluk belonging to the 2nd defendant -Devasthanam. This lease was entered into for a period of 15 years from 1st May, 1956 to 30th April, 1971. The petitioners allege that they have reclaimed the lands at a considerable cost and are cultivating the lands with their own physical labour, though, not all the lands have been reclaimed. After the Act came into force, the Authorised Officer has passed the impugned order holding that the petitioners are entitled to hold 2.77 acres and 3.37 acres respectively and they should surrender possession of the excess lands held by them to the Trust concerned. Though various contentions have been raised in this writ petition regarding the validity of the Act itself, none of them are pressed now. The only point that is pressed for consideration is that the Act nowhere provides the procedure for taking possession of the lands which are surplus to the lands which a cultivating tenant can hold and therefore the Authorised Officer was not competent to pass the impugned order.

(2.) SECTION 7(1) of that Act provides that " where, on the notified date, any cultivating tenant under any public trust is in possession of land in excess of the cultivating tenant's ceiling area the possession of the lands which is held by the public trust and which is in excess of the cultivating tenants ceiling area shall with effect from the date aforesaid, revert to the public trust subject to such rules as may be made in this behalf." Section 8 provides that " where any land reverts to the public trust under Section 7 the trustee of the public trust shall, within ninety days from the date of reversion lease out such land to (i) a co -operative society; or (ii) any person who is already a cultivating tenant; or (in) any person who not being already a cultivating tenant executes an agreement with the public trust that he will contribute his own physical labour or that of any member of his family in the cultivation of the land so leased out to him." Under Section 18, subject to the provisions of section. 7 cultivating tenant under any public trust shall be evicted from his holding or any part thereof by or at the instance of the public trust. Under Section 49, ' if the trustee of any public trust, any cultivating tenant under any public trust or any other person contravenes any lawful order passed under this Act or obstructs any person from lawfully taking possession of any land for the possession of which such person is entitled in pursuance of any of the provisions of this Act or of any order passed thereunder, such trustee, cultivating tenant or other person shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees". Under Section 59(i) the Government have the power to make rules to carry out the purposes of the Act. Sub -section (2) of the section reads:

(3.) FORM No. 6 reads as follows: