ATHIPALLI MALLA REDDY Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This civil revision petition under Section 21 of the Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973, by the petitioner-land-holder, gives rise to a short question of law relating to the interpretation of the definition of "wet land" under of Section 3 (v) (ii) of the Act, which reads thus:-

(2.) We shall now turn to the case of any land not registered as wet, but has been irrigated by water from any Government source of irrigation in any four years within a continuous period of six fasli years immediately before the specified date. Here the source of irrigation with which the dry land received supply of water must be, not by permission or stealthily or unauthorised use of water thereby enabling the land-holder to raise the wet crop. The proviso to this section must be construed in such a way so as to give a right to the land-holder for the Government source of irrigation in any four fasli years within a continuous period of six fasli years.

(3.) The submission of the Government Pleader, that the permissive or unauthorised use of water from any Government source of irrigation in any four fasli years within a continuous period of six fasli years, would bring the case within the definition of "wet land", if acceded to, would lead to much hardship and anomalous results. The user of Government water by a land-holder, either unauthorised, stealthily or with the permission of the concerned authorities, on account of drought or any special circumstances in any particular period, would not in any way create a right in him to take water from the Government source of irrigation as of right. The legislature would not have intended to include any dry land, which has stealthily o unauthorisedly been cultivated by the use of Government water within the meaning of "wet land". The expression "any land not registered as wet which has been irrigated by water from a Government source of irrigation" used in Section 3 (v) (ii) refers only to land registered as dry though it is being irrigated by the Government source of water. If the plea urged by the Government pleader is given effect to, it results in a case where the land-holders land would be taken away on the basis that it was wet land though it was not registered in an ayacut. The Legislature would not have intended such an anomaly or injustice to prevail. In the light of the intendment and object of the Act; the view taken by our learned brother Ramachandra Rao, J. in A. Sudhakara Reddy. v. State of A. P. (1977) APLJ 127, to the effect, that the language of Section 3 (v) (ii) of the Act does not require that the source of irrigation of a land must be a Government source of irrigation and it should be as of right, does not appear to be correct. The proviso to this very definition, as pointed out earlier, requires actual use of water from a Government source of irrigation for a period of four fasli years within a continuous period of six fasli years even though it is included in the ayacut of any Government source of irrigation. The use of water from the Government source, noted in the proviso, as well as the irrigation by water from any Government source of irrigation, stated in Section 3 (v) (ii) must be as of right.