DIGAMBAR GOPAL Vs. VITHOBA JOGU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Letters Patent Appeal arising from a judgment in a suit for ejectment.

(2.) IT appears from the evidence that the appellant plaintiff terminated the contractual tenancy by a notice given to the respondent evicting him from 31-3-1945. The notice was actually given on 30-11-1944. There was in force the Bombay Tenancy Act, 1939, but it has not been made applicable to the area in which the land in suit was situated. Subsequently, however, the Bombay Tenancy Act was amended and the Amended Act has been made applicable to the area in which the land is situated pending the suit. It was under this Amended Act that the defendant tenant took up a contention that he was a protected tenant, and tiie only question which arises in the present appeal is whether he is a protected tenant.

(3.) THE question is covered by two decisions of the division benches of this Court. One in --'ramchandra Atmaram v. Ramchandra Laxman', S. A. NO. 335 of 1948, D/- 14-10-1949 (Bom) (A) and the other in -- 'vaman Narayan Ketkar v. Lax-man Chaytya Vedga', S. A. No. 874 of 1946, D/-10-11-1949 (Bom) (B ). In both these cases the view which was taken was that the word "tenant" in the Act of 1939 means a person whose tenancy had not expired at the date when the Act came into force. There are of course in the Act itself provisions under which certain persons are deemed to be protected tenants. And Mr. Dharap who appears on behalf of the respondent relies upon Section 4 (1) (b) which says that certain tenants shall be deemed to be protected tenants if those persons held any land and cultivated it continuously for a period of not less than six years immediately preceding 1-4-1944, and were evicted from such land on or after such: date otherwise than by order of a competent authority on any of the grounds specified in Section 5, Sub-section (2 ). This Sub-section, however, has in terms no application because it applies only in regard to persons who were evicted from the land on and after 1-4-1944, otherwise than by order of a competent authority on any of the grounds specified in Sub-section (2) of Section 5. Mr. Dharap says that we should interpret the word "evicted" to mean a person whose tenancy has been terminated by an act on the part of the landlord by giving a notice. But we see no authority whatsoever for interpreting that word in that sense. It is true that it does seem anomalous that persons who had held land continuously for a period of not less than six years immediately preceding 1-4-1944, were to be regarded as protected tenants if they were evicted from such land on or after such date otherwise than by order of a competent Court on any of the grounds specified in Sub-section (2) of Section 5, but that in case they remained on the land, they were not to be regarded as protected tenants. But as pointed out by the division bench in -- 'ramchandra Atmaram v. Ramchandra Laxman (A)', the tenancy legislation has not always been well drafted and we must take the legislation as it is. It would be doing violence to the language of the section to say that it required a person to be regarded as evicted even when he was still on the land.