VANKAMAMIDI LAKSHMINARASIMHAM Vs. M. SUBBAIAH AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the order passed by the Estates Abolition Tribunal (District Judge, Guntur) dated 26-4-1963 made in Tas. No. 33 of 1961 whereby the learned Judge set aside the order passed by the Assistant Settlement Officer, Eluru, in S.R. No. 20/61 on his file and held that the landholder who is the writ petitioner herein was not entitled to the grant of ryotwari patta under Section 13(a) of the Estates Abolition Act inasmuch as the lands in question of an extent of Ac. 5-56 cents situate in Boddulurupadu Agraharam are not the private lands of the landholder.

(2.) The Assistant Settlement Officer had, however, reached the conclusion that the petitioner was entitled to a patta because the requirements of section 13(a) of the Estates Abolition Act had been satisfied. In reaching this conclusion the Assistant Settlement Officer relied on Ex. A-1, a partition deed dated 8-10-1907 whereby the petitioner's father and his brothers had divided their properties and the lands in question had fallen to the share of the petitioner's father. Another document relied on is Ex. A-2 a registered lease deed dated 4-10-1914 executed by one Doddpaneni Kotayya in favour of the father of the petitioner. The lease was for a period of four years although the land was surrendered to the landholder after three years. Another document relied op by the Assistant Settlement Officer is Ex, A-3, a certified copy of the deposition of the petitioner's father in O.S. No. 341 of 1952, which was a suit filed by him against respondents 1, 2 and another for recovery of possession of the land after ejecting the defendants therefrom, for arrears of maktha and for future profits. In that suit the petitioner's father had pleaded that the land in question was private land and that the defendants in that suit were his tenants and that they had committed default in payment of rent and were refusing to hand over possession of the land. The defendants, on the other hand,contended that Boddulurupadu Agraharam was an estate within the meaning of the Madras Estates Land Act and that the suit land is a ryoti land situated in the said Agraharam and further that the defendants had acquired permanent rights of occupancy in the land. The suit was filed by the writ petitioner in the Dist. Munsif's Court, Repalle, and it was dismissed. An appeal was filed by the petitioner before the Subordinate Judge, Tenali, as Appeal Suit No. 50 of 1957. But the learned Subordinate Judge dismissed the appeal and affirmed the decree and judgment of the trial court, holding that the suit land is not the private land of the writ petitioner. Against that decision the petitioner filled Second Appeal No. 528 of 1959 in the High Court, but that was dismissed by this Court as it was withdrawn by the petitioner.

(3.) Yet another piece of evidence relied on by the Assistant Settlement Officer was that the petitioner had paid jodi and kist till about 1950, and although the land had been leased out to tenants from time to time, the receipts showed that the land had been held by them as lessees in pursuance of lease agreements. The Assistant Settlement Officer also relied on the oral evidence of the Karnam, who had been in service since 1922 and who stated that the lands in question stood registered in the name of the claimant Lakshminarasimham in all the village accounts and although the Rent Reduction Act was applied to them with effect from 1950 and rent was collected from the tenants in occupation of the land, yet before the Rent Reduction Act was applied to this village, no notice was given to the landholder. The Assistant Settlement Officer summed up his conclusion thus:-