R KANAKAMMA Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR NELLORE DISTRICT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In recent times a number of writ petitions were filed in this Court by the land-owners complaining that the public authorities in the State, without resorting to the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act or any other enabling provisions of law, have been forcefully taking over the possession of the lands. This Court, dealing with one of such cases, in K. Sai Reddy v. Deputy Executive Engineer, Irrigation and Command Area Development, Nampally (1) Writ Petition No. 11215 of 1992, dated 20-3-1995 = AIR 1995 AP 208, was constrained to observe in para 1 of the judgment as under: "When this case was heard, the caution noted by Lord Hewart in his book "The New Despotism'' (1929) that bureaucracy had become true rulers of the country and which caution led to several reforms in the Administrative Law of England, loomed large in the mind of the court. With the advent of the Indian Constitution, the Indian people thought that their person and property are protected and they can be deprived only in accordance with law. That constitutional belief has been belied by the bureaucrats in this case. This case highlights how irresponsible bureaucrats who are meant to respect and implement the law do something in utter violation of the law and the Constitution and set quite comfortably without least botheration to introspect their illegal actions and undo the thing which ought not to have been done." When I made those observations I thought that case was one of the few exceptions, but that was not to be. Here again the Court is confronted with similar facts situation. The case of the petitioner, as pleaded in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition, be summarised briefly as under.

(2.) The petitioner's husband was tenant of the land admeasuring Acs. 5-75 cents situated in survey No. 319/2 of Bit.II, Nellore, which land is hereinafter shortly referred to as 'the schedule land'. The schedule land was leased to the petitioner's husband by the sixth respondent-temple by a registered lease agreement dated 24-3-1934. At the time of leasing the schedule land in favour of the petitioner's husband, the schedule land was barren and unfit for cultivation. There were thorny bushes. It is claimed that the petitioner's husband removed the bushes and levelled the schedule land and he dug a well at a considerable cost and raised an orchard and in the rest of the land he grew seasonal flower crops. After the death of her husband, the petitioner and her children have been in actual possession and enjoyment of the schedule land. The husband of the petitioner and after his death the petitioner and her children have been paying Maktha to the sixth respondent-temple authorities and obtaining the receipts for having done so. The petitioner has been paying land revenue to the revenue authorities regularly from the beginning. It is also claimed that the petitioner and her children do not own or possess any other land except this schedule land for their livelihood and they solely depend upon the income to be derived from cultivation of the schedule land. It is also stated that the petitioner and her children have constructed a farm-house in the schedule land and they have been living there since a long time.

(3.) The Andhra State Legislature enacted the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act 1956 (for short 'the Act') which came into force on 14 August 1956. The husband of the petitioner became a statutory cultivating tenant by force of provisions of Sub-section (1) of Section 10 of the Act. The lease subsisting in favour of the husband of the petitioner at the commencement of the Act should be deemed to be in perpetuity in the light of the provisions of the said Sub-section (1) of Section 10 of the Act. Although the sixth respondent-temple did not reserve right to evict the husband of the petitioner from the schedule land in the agreement dated 24-3-1934 referred to above, the temple- authority filed ACT No.37 of 1981 under Section 13 of the Act for eviction of the petitioner's husband from the schedule land and that petition was dismissed on 11-4-1989 after contest. The sixth respondent-temple authorities filed an appeal, ATA No. 10 of 1991, before the appellate authority under the Act and the said appeal was also dismissed on merits on 28-11-1991. The sixth respondent-temple authorities did not take any further steps to assail the order made by the appellate authority and consequently the orders of the original authority and the appellate authority became final.