MALAK SINGH Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER (TAXATION) PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short question that arises for determination in this writ petition is as to whether the proviso to the section 7(1)(b) of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, would be applicable to the case of a tenant who was inducted on the land as such after the commencement of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act (Second Amendment Act, 1956), hereinafter referred to as the 'Second Amendment Act, 1956'.

(2.) It is not in dispute that the petitioner-tenant was inducted on the land after the commencement of the Second Amendment Act, 1956. The landlord sought ejectment of the petitioner-tenant on the ground that he failed to pay the rent (batai). His ejectment was ordered. That order was challenged inter alia on the ground that the Assistant Collector had failed to comply with the provisions of section 7(1)(b) which impliedly envisaged that the arrears of the rent had to be first determined by the Court ordering the ejectment and such a order of ejectment would become operative only if the arrears were not deposited within six months of the ejectment order. Petitioner failed right upto the Financial Commissioner. The Revenue Courts held that the aforesaid provisions of section 7 were applicable to the case of a tenant who was inducted on the land after the commencement of the 'Second Amendment Act, 1956', if the ejectment of such a tenant was sought within three years of his so being inducted on the land and not otherwise.

(3.) The point has now been authoritatively settled by a Full Bench of this Court in Piara Singh v. The Financial Commissioner Revenue & others, 1977 2 ILR(P&H) 20. Dhillon, J. delivering the majority opinion held that the provisions of section 8 of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 provide that all the tenants inducted on the land after the commencement of the 'Second Amendment Act, 1956' should have three years protection from being ejected by the big landowners from their reserved area and by the small landowners from the area within their permissible limits. The proviso to this section provides a few exceptions, the same being that the tenants of a widow, a minor, an unmarried woman, a member of the Armed Forces of the Union or a person incapable of cultivating land by reason of physical or mental infirmity, shall not have the protection of three years. By providing section 7-A in the Amendment Act of 1956, the Legislature dealt with the existing tenancies and by making provisions in section 8, the Legislature provided for the tenancies to be created after the 'Second Amendment Act, 1956', an additional ground to landowners to evict the tenant from the reserved area or from the area owned by a small landowner within the permissible limits independent of the grounds mentioned in section 7 of the Act. However, such tenants cannot be evicted before a minimum period of three years subject to the cases provided for in the proviso. Thus, section 8 of the Act confers an additional ground of eviction to a landlord for evicting a tenant brought on the land after the date on which the Second Amendment Act came into force.