MAYILSAMI GOUNDER Vs. RAMMOORTHI CHETTIAR AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition comes before us on a reference made by one of us. The petitioner is the tenant who applied for restoration of possession on an eviction order being reversed, in execution of which, he had been deprived of possession, but, the Revenue Divisional Officer dismissed the application on the ground of limitation.

(2.) THE respondent applied for eviction in February, 1960 which was ordered. Since the tenant failed to deposit the rent within the time allowed, the order was put to execution and the landlord entered upon possession in July, 1960. Eventually the revision petition directed against the order of eviction was allowed by this Court on the ground that the respondent should have impleaded the newly inducted tenant. On the strength of this order of reversion, the tenant, who is the petitioner before us, applied for restitution. But the application was dismissed on the ground that it was out of time under the provisions of Section 4(5) of the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1955. The petition under consideration is to revise that order.

(3.) WHEN the petition came before one of us, it was felt that there was no jurisdiction vested in the Revenue Divisional Officer to order restoration, and that since Section 4(5) would have no application to a case of deprivation of possession of a tenant, in execution of an order under Section 3(4), no question of limitation could for that reason arise. But Raso Monpanar v. Ramamurthy Iyer I.L.R. (1968) 2 Mad. 571 : (1967) 1 M.L.J. 387, had taken the view that because, as would be obvious from the Act, the Legislature was so particular about protecting the rights of cultivating tenants, it would be reasonable to infer that it did not intend that a cultivating tenant who had been evicted from his holding in pursuance of an order of Court which is subsequently found to be wrong, should be left helpless and without any remedy to get possession of the holding from which he had been so evicted. In the view of one of us this view required reconsideration and that is how it has been placed before a Division Bench.