LINGAMIAH Vs. BURRA YALLIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been referred by our learned brother, Venkatesam, J., as raising an important question of law, viz., whether the provisions of the Tenancy Act are applicable to the case of a person who has dispossessed the protected tenant forcibly.

(2.) The petitioner was admittedly a protected tenant. The respondent herein is a person who has agreed to purchase the land from the owner-pattadar, who according to him was in possession of the porperty, the same having been relinquished in his favour by the protected tenant under an oral agreement entered into in 1951 beiore the amendment to the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act come into iorce, which made all such relinquishments invalid unless they were made in writing and before the Tahsildar. It is also averred by the respondent that unless the landlord was made a party, the petition was untenable. On the strength of this, the Tahsildar made the landlord a party. The question of jurisdiction of the Tahsildar was urged before him, and the Tahsildar ruled that he had jurisdiction to inquire into the question whether, as alleged by the respondent, the tenant had surrendered possession to the landlord. As against this order, the respondent filed a revision petition before the Collector, but did not implead the landlord. The Collector held, following certain observations of Subba Rao, G.J. (as he then was) in Sharfuddin v. Samu Telluga, (1957) 2 An.W.R. 478 that since the petitioner alleged that the respondent was a trespassei, section 32 of the Act does not apply to himn ; it is only applicable to cases of landlord and tenant and not to third parties. In this view, he held that the Tahsildar had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition and consequently directed dismissal of the petition. Against that order, the petitioner filed a revision not only against the respondent but also against the landlord. The office took objection that since the landlord was not a vary before the Collector, he cannot be made a party here. In those circumstances, the petitioner had to delete the name on the landlord from the array of parties. The respondent took an objection that no revision lies under section 98 of the Act, because it is only against orders passed in appeal that revisions lie. In the circumstances, when the matter came up before a Bench, Sri Madhava Reddy had imimated that he would ask for conversion of the revision petition into a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution and accordingly paid the deficit court-fec and sought our permission to do so. We think that this is a fit case in which we should permit him. We accordingly do so.

(3.) The simple question in this case is whether the Collector was right in dismissing the petition of the tenant on the ground that his application was against a third party and cannot be entertained under the Tenancy Act. In order for test the validity of this order, it is necessary to examine che provisions of section 32 of the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, which we give below :-