VINAY KUMAR RATANLALAJI JAISWAL Vs. NANDRANIBAI KISANLAL JAISWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Fifty years ago while disposing of Special Civil Application No.330 of 1957 raising similar questions between the predecessors of the present parties, concerning the same property, a Division Bench of this Court observed in para 2 of the judgment in Lala Jugalkishore (Landholder) v. Bombay Revenue Tribunal, Nagpur and others, reported at 1958 Nagpur Law Journal 355 that .This case has a very chequered history.. History repeats and so we repeat those words.

(2.) The appellant was a tenant in respect of certain agricultural lands belonging to the respondent-landlord in the Agricultural Year 1951-52. The extent of those lands was said to be about 84 acres. The appellant was entitled to be a protected lessee in respect of 50 acres of those lands in terms of the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 of the Berar Regulation of Agricultural Leases Act, 1951. For the sake of ready reference, those Sections may be usefully reproduced as under :

(3.) The implication of these provisions was that if a tenant was held to be a protected lessee in respect of the land exceeding fifty acres, he was required to give intimation in respect of his selection of 50 acres which he wanted to retain two months before the commencement of the next Agricultural Year, since the law contemplated situations where the tenant may acquire more land in any subsequent Agricultural Year. By an amendment, Section 4-A was added to the Act, whereby the time to select fifty acres of land was extended till 1-2-1954.