TUNGABHADRABAI DEORAO BHAGWAT Vs. NANASAHEB GANPATRAO KHALATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These four Special Civil Applications filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India raise interesting - but important questions under the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The three petitions, Special Civil Applications 1843/1970 to 1845/1970 raise common questions of law and fact, So fur as Special Civil Application 631/1970 is concerned, one of the questions of law raised therein is common to the question arising in the other three matters. It would, therefore, be convenient to dispose of all the four petitions by a common judgment.

(2.) IN order to appreciate the rival contentions raised, it would be necessary to state the relevant facts out of which these four petitions have arisen.

(3.) THE facts which are no longer in dispute are that all these three pieces of land belonged originally to one Laxmibai Narayan Naik who was a widow on the tillers' day, that is, on April 1, 1957. She filed applications for possession of all these lands against the respective tenants under Section 29 read with Section 31 of the Act on the ground that she bona fide required the lands for personal cultivation, All these applications came to be rejected on November 21, 1957, and the tenants continued to be in possession of the respective lands. On December 26, 1957, Laxmibai adopted the respondent landlord who was then a minor, Thereafter, on November 10, 1958, Laxmibai died. The respondent who was a minor on the date of adoption attained majority on April 8, 1963. It is conceded by both the parties before me that the respondent did not exercise his right to claim possession of any of these lands for bona fide personal cultivation as per the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 31 of the Act. It is also not disputed that after the expiry of the period of one year during which the respondent could exercise his right to claim -under Sub -section (2) of Section 31, none of the tenants gave an intimation of there willingness to purchase the land as required by the provisions of Section 32F (M) of the Act. However, it would be relevant to notice that before the expiry of the period of two years of the landlord attaining majority during which the tenants could exercise their right to purchase the lands by giving intimation under Section 32F(1A), all these three pieces of lands were acquired by the Government for a public purpose under the Land Acquisition Act. In the land acquisition proceedings, the Government took possession of Survey Nos. 123/2, 158/2 and 163 on April 22/1964, January 11, 1964 and January 3, 1964'respectively. It is common ground that since the date of taking possession of these pieces of land by the Collector, they have vested in the Government absolutely free from all encumbrances as per the provisions of Section 16 of the Land Acquisition Act. I am informed by the parties that the Land Acquisition Officer has determined the total amount of compensation under the award, and the Collector has made a reference for apportionment of amount of compensation between the landlords and the respective tenants under Section 30 of the Land Acquisition Act.