MOHENDRA LAL Vs. RAMPRASAD PADARATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this appeal, a point of some importance to the public is involved relating to certain rights or privileges acquired under the Assam (Temporarily -Settled Districts) Tenancy Act, (Act 3 of 1935) and Mr. S.M. Lahiri, Advocate -General was requested to appear as amicus curiae which he kindly did.

(2.) THE suit from which this appeal arises was on behalf of the Appellant Mohendra Lal Barua for evicting Ramprasad Padarath Chamar from the plot of land measuring 1 K out of Dags No. 49 and 50 of N.K. Periodic patta No. 4 of town Sarania now included within the Gauhati Municipality within the limits of Panbari Mauza. The Defendant resisted the claim for eviction on the ground that he had already acquired the status of an occupancy tenant under Section 13 of the Assam (Temporarily -Settled Districts) Tenancy Act, 1935 and was not liable to be evicted as a tenant -at -will or by the suit which had been brought by the Plaintiff.

(3.) MR . Gupta appearing for the Respondent contends that even though there might be no separate provision to indicate that the rights once acquired by the tenant under the Act 3 of 1935 are not extinguished because of the inclusion of the land in the Municipality or in civil station, the general interpretation of a statute would support the proposition that a right once acquired cannot be extinguished unless by operation of law or by an act of parties. Here in this case, there has been no transactions between the parties whereby the Defendant would forfeit his rights and no Act of Legislature having prescribed that a tenant would forfeit his rights, he can not be made to forfeit them simply by an executive action of the Deputy Commissioner or of any other officer by incorporating the land within the municipal limits or within the civil station of Gauhati. He relied on - -'Shiya Janki v. Kirta nand Singh' : AIR 1936 Pat 173 (A) in support of his contention and submitted that the rights -once acquired vested with the acquirer unless taken away by some other Legislature and the new law ought to be construed, so as to interfere as little as possible with the vested rights. The facts of that case, however, bear no analogy to the fact of the present case.