SURISETTI SATYANARAYANAMURTHY Vs. RAJANALA GOPALARAO NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) C.M.P. No. 5638 of 1946 is for stay of further proceedings in O.S. No. 34 of 1946 on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Ellore, pending the disposal of C.R.P. No. 1278 of 1946 of this Court. Interim stay was granted and thereafter it was contended by the petitioner in the Civil Miscellaneous Petition that the statutory stay provided under Madras Act XVII of 1946 had come into operation and both the Civil Miscellaneous Petition and Civil Revision Petition should be stayed. Consequently the Civil Revision Petition and Civil Miscellaneous Petition were directed to be posted together for orders. The Civil Revision Petition itself is against an order holding that Section 4 of the Act XVII of 1946 has no application to the case.

(2.) The first defendant is the petitioner in the Civil Revision Petition while the plaintiff is the respondent. The suit is for a declaration that the plaintiff alone is the owner of the occupancy rights in the suit lankas, that none of the defendants have any rights of occupancy therein, and that, as such, the plaintiff is entitled to immediate possession with profits for the suit lankas. Those lands have been since placed under the management of a receiver appointed by the Sub-Court and they are in custodia legis. The defendants, however, claim to be the real occupancy ryots and they contend that the plaintiff is their landholder and that under the provisions of the Madras Estates Land Act he is not entitled to evict them.

(3.) Thus, the real and substantial question between the parties is as to who has got the occupancy rights in respect of the suit property, whether it is the plaintiff or the defendants. Mr. Subba Rao, the learned Counsel for the respondent in the Civil Revision Petition urges that Madras Act XVII of 1946 has no application to a case of this description. His argument is that the Act provides for the temporary protection from eviction of two classes of tenants, namely, tenants to whom the Malabar Tenancy Act (1929) applies and tenants of private lands and estates governed by the Madras Estates Land Act. So far as such tenants are concerned, they are protected under Section 3 from eviction from their lands by the landlord in pursuance of a decree or order for eviction. With reference fo ryots within the meaning of the Madras Estates Land Act Act the only protection that the Act provides is against the sale of their holdings in such estates. Section 3(b) is referred to as showing that the only protection for such ryots contemplated under the Act is the prohibition of the selling of their holdings in pursuance of a decree or order for recovery of the rent. There is no provision in the whole Act which confers protection from eviction on a ryot under the Madras Estates Land Act for the obvious reason that under the latter Act no ryot of a ryoti land can be evicted; he has only to prove that he has occupancy rights and he gets absolute protection under the Madras Estates Land Act itself and no further protection was required to be provided under the new Act. Their holdings could, however, be brought to sale for recovery of rent. As possibly the Legislature is contemplating to introduce legislation with regard to the rents the intention was to prevent the sale of a holding until such legislation was passed regulating the rents payable by ryots in estates to the landholder. A close scrutiny of all the sections of the Act very clearly supports the contentions advanced by Mr. Subba Rao. The other side is not in a position to point to any provision or even an expression in the Act from which it can be gathered that the expression " tenants " used in the Act would cover persons other than the two classes of tenants mentioned above, namely, tenants under the Malabar Tenancy Act and tenants of private lands situated in estates.