ARUN SANGHAI Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgments in this writ petition and some other writ petitions were kept reserved to await the decision of the Division Bench of this Court on a reference made by the learned single Judge of this Court (Padhye, J. as he then was) in Special Civil Application No. 1514 of 1977 in regard to the ratio of the decision of another learned single Judge of this Court (V. S. Deshpande, J. as he then was) in Narayanibai v. State of Maharashtra, 1976 Mah LJ 865. The Division Bench has now answered the reference in the above special civil application by its judgment dt. 17-9-1984. I am, therefore, delivering the judgment in this case in the light of the aforesaid judgment of the Division Bench of this Court.

(2.) In this petition, the sole contention raised on behalf of the petitioners is about the applicability of section 10(1) of the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961, (for short the 'Ceiling Act') in respect of transfers of lands made prior to 20-9-1975 by a member of a family unit, who held land separately below the ceiling limit prior to 26-9-1970. A decision of the learned single Judge (Puranik, J.) of this court in Vithalrao v. State, 1983 Mah LJ 952 is heavily relied upon on behalf of the petitioners to show that the above contention raised by them stands concluded by the said decision.

(3.) Briefly the facts are that the family unit in the instant case consisted of the petitioner No. 1, his wife Kantabai and his minor sons, the petitioners 2 and 3. The petitioner No. 1, in the return filed under section 12 of the Ceiling Act on behalf of the family unit, disclosed 85.39 acres of land as belonging to his aforesaid family unit. However, he did not disclose the land admeasuring 19.12 acres from S. No. 436/1 of village Edwa, which had gone to the share of his wife Smt. Kantabai and which she had sold by the sale-deed dt. 19-11-1971 pursuant to the alleged agreement of sale arrived at on 19-5-1969.