INDRAMONI NATH Vs. LOKENATH BARBHUIYA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE point of general importance which led to the constitution of a Special Bench to hear this appeal from appellate decree is whether S. 13 of the Assam (Temporarily -Settled Districts) Tenancy Act, 1935, as amended by Act 27 of 1953 is retrospective in operation, so as to deprive the plaintiffs of their right to eject the defendant in the suit to which this appeal relates.

(2.) THE material facts are brief. The plaintiffs sued to evict the defendant from an agricultural holding which includes also homestead lands. They served a notice to quit on 8 -10 -1949 calling upon the defendant to vacate within a period of six months, at the end of the agricultural year; and on the failure of the latter to comply they filed the present suit on 10 -10 -1950. The defendant resisted the suit substantially on the ground that he had acquired occupancy rights in the land. The findings are that the defendant was not shown to be a defaulter nor was there anything to show that ho had used the land in a manner which rendered it unfit for the purposes of the tenancy. Both the Courts below, however, have concurrently found that the defendant had been in possession of the land for the last 14 or 15 years. As such, under the law as it stood at the date of the institution of this suit, they held that he had not acquired occupancy rights in the land and therefore, decreed the plaintiffs' claim for eviction. It is now contended in support of the appeal that, on the strength of the finding that the defendant had been in possession for the last 14 or 15 years and in view of the amended provision of S. 13 of the Assam Tenancy Act, it should be held that the defendant was an occupancy tenant of the land in question and the plaintiffs had no right to eject him. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the state of the law as it originally was and as it stands after the amendment. The relevant part of S. 13 of the Assam (Temporary -Settled Districts) Tenancy Act, 1935 (hereinafter called the Act), which occurs in Chapter IV dealing with Occupancy Raiyats, originally stood as follows:

(3.) THERE are certain well recognised principles of interpretation, which govern retrospective operation of statutes. When a statute has the effect of taking away or impairing vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creates new duties and obligations, or attaches new disabilities in respect of transactions already past, the presumption is that it is not retrospective, unless such intention is either clearly expressed by the Legislature or is to be gathered otherwise by necessary implication. It is also a well settled canon of construction that when the law is changed during the pendency of an action, it is ordinarily the law as it existed at the commencement of the action that regulates the rights of the parties, unless, as staled earlier, the law manifests a clear intention to the contrary.