S RAJAGOPALA PILLAI Vs. KNAMASIVAYAM PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question at issue in these connected appeals is whether the appellant who came into the occupation of a kudiyiruppu in October, 1929 can enforce against his landlord the right of purchase granted by Section 33 of the Malabar Tenancy Act. That section runs as follows: In any suit for eviction relating wholly or in part to a kudiyiruppu, which has been in the continuous occupation of a tenant or the members of his family for ten years on the date of the institution of the said suit, such tenant shall be entitled to offer to purchase the rights in the kudiyiruppu, of the landlord who seeks to evict him, at the market price on the said date.

(2.) Now the appellant has prima facie no rights under this section. His personal occupation at the time of the institution of the suit had lasted for just seven weeks, and his predecessor- in- title from whom he purchased his tenant's right was not a member of his family. But he contends that the kudiyiruppu has been in the continuous occupation of himself and his two predecessors-in-title since 1906, and that he is entitled to reckon this whole period of 23 years in his favour. The word tenant according to him is used in the section as contrasted with other possible occupiers for example a landlord or a usufructuary mortgagee, and whenever a kudiyiruppu has been in the possession of a succession of tenants for ten years the section applies.

(3.) This contention amounted in the arguments before us to little more than a mere assertion. The only other section of the Act which Mr. Sitarama Rao called to his aid was Section 39. This section no doubt permits a tenant to alienate whatever rights he has, but that alienation is expressly made "subject to the provisions of this Act" and if Section 33 provides what is only a personal and conditional and not an absolute right Section 39 cannot make it alienable so as to relieve the alienee of the conditions. We must therefore go back to Section 33 itself and to us it seems apparent that that section can confer no rights upon the appellant. Omitting for the moment the words or the members of his family what is the meaning of the expression the continuous occupation of a tenant ? Only one meaning we think is possible without a violent straining of the English language, and that is that a single tenant must have been in occupation for the whole ten years. The section goes on to qualify this by the words or the members of his family . What now is the meaning? Surely this, that throughout the ten years, no one other than the tenant or members of his family must have been in occupation. If the appellant's contention is correct, it would surely have been easy to make a specific reference in the section to predecessors-in-title, or if that were not done, to use the word tenants in the plural instead of a tenant in the singular. The words a tenant in the section must refer to the tenant, whose eviction is actually sought for, it is such tenant who shall be entitled to offer to- purchase.