THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.10043 of 2005 19.8.2005 Between: R.Ramachandra Reddy, s/o. Rami Reddy, Paraipalli Village, Allagadda Mandal, Kurnool District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Commissioner, A.P. Charitable and Hindu Regional Institutions and Endowment Department , Hyderabad and others .....RESPONDENTS ORDER: The petitioner is in occupation of land admeasuring Acs.7.50 of dry land in Survey No.42 of Gubagundum village. The land belongs to Sri Ramalingeswara Swamy temple of Paraipalli village in Allagadda Mandal of Kurnool District, the third respondent herein. The petitioner filed the instant writ petition assailing the auction notice issued by the third respondent inviting public participation for auctioning the leasehold rights for 2005-2006. The only ground urged in the writ petition is that he is a landless poor person entitled to the benefit under subsection (2) of Section 82 of A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions & Endowments Act, 1987 (the Act, for brevity) and therefore, he cannot be dispossessed giving lease of the land to others. Be it noted of different survey numbers mentioned in the auction notice, the petitioner is concerned only with the land admeasuring Acs.7.50 in Survey No.42, which is shown at Serial No.1 in the auction notice. The ‘landless poor person’ is defined in explanation to subsection (2) of Section 82 of the Act as an owner or tenant of land, less than Acs.2.50 of wet land or less than Acs.5.00 of dry land. In this case, admittedly, the petitioner is tenant of the land admeasuring Acs.7.50 and therefore, he does not fall within the definition of landless poor person. So as to wriggle out of this situation, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, Sri R.Ramanjaneyulu, contended that as the petitioner is not having any other property, he may be allowed to retain Acs.5.00 of dry land for the purpose of treating him as a landless poor person. I am afraid, this submission cannot be accepted. In Jangili Nagaiah v. Assistant Commissioner of Endowments, Ongole, I have considered this aspect of the matter having regard to the law declared by the Supreme Court in State of A.P. v. Nallamilli Rami Reddi. Paragraph Nos.5 and 6 of the Judgment in Jangili Nagaiah (supra) are relevant and they read as under: A plain reading of the above provision discloses that persons claiming the benefit under sub-section (2) of Section 82 of the Act must fall within the category of landless poor persons as prescribed in the explanation to the section. As per the explanation, a person to be a landless poor person must not have more than two and half acres of wet land either as owner or cultivating tenant and must not have five acres of dry land either as owner or cultivating tenant. Any person who possesses as cultivating tenant land exceeding five acres dry land cannot be treated as landless poor person. The petitioner admittedly is a lessee of dry land admeasuring Acs.7.36 cents and, therefore, he is not a landless poor person. Learned counsel for the petitioner raised an ingenuous contention that the petitioner being a poor person is entitled to the benefit under sub-section (2) of Section 82 of the Act by allowing him to retain the leased land to an extent of Acs.5.00 and the land over and above Acs.5.00 is alone required to be surrendered. This argument suffers from malice. I n State of A.P. v. Nallamilli Rami Reddi, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Section 82 of the Act. Dealing with this aspect of the matter, it was observed as under. …………………..It is settled law that it is open to the legislature to state as to who should be exempt from the application of the law and, in the present case, there is a definition of “landless poor person” whose total extent of land held by him either as owner or as cultivating tenant or as both does not exceed two-and-half acres of wetland or five acres of dry land having been identified as “landless poor person” and he is enabled to purchase the land at 75% of the prevailing market value by paying in four equal instalments as may be provided under the Rules. Therefore, that aspect of saving the small landholders cannot be objected to nor can the meaning of “landless poor person” be enlarged…………. (emphasis supplied) No other contention is raised by the petitioner. However, if the petitioner has any standing crop, he may be allowed to take away the crop. It is submitted on instructions by the learned Standing Counsel for the third respondent that there is no standing crop as on today. The same is recorded. The writ petition, with the above observations, is dismissed. No costs. _____________ (V.V.S. RAO,J) August 19, 2005 YS