Case: Oduru Chenchulakshmamma and Another Vs. Duvvuru Subramanya Reddy

in any court of law." Sub-section (2) of the section categorically declares that the decision of the Tribunal deciding the appeal shall be final and not liable to be questioned in any court of law, in so far as it relates to any of the matters covered by sub-section (1). It goes without saying that if no appeal is filed, a similar finality shall attach to the decision of the Settlement Officer. One of such matters is covered by clause (c) of sub-section (1) and embraces the determination of the question as to who the lawful ryot in respect of any holding is. Questions which a Settlement Officer may be called upon to decide under the said clause (c) would certainly include such as may have resulted from a dispute between two or mo re persons as to who of them is the lawful ryot; and once a dispute of that type has been adjudicated upon by the Settlement Officer, his decision becomes final unless an appeal is filed before the Tribunal, in which event it is the decision of the Tribunal to which finality attaches. In either case the decision is not liable to be called into question in any Court of law. We need not go into further details on the question of interpretation of section 56 of the Madras Act inasmuch as our view is fully supported by another decision of this Court in Muddada Chayanna v. Karnam Narayana and Another etc.. In that case Chinnappa Reddy, J., who delivered the judgment of the Court was concerned with the interpretation to be placed on section 56 of the Andhra Act which repeats word for word the contents of section 56 of the Madras Act. In holding that the authorities mentioned in sub-section (2) of section 56 of the Andhra Act had exclusive jurisdiction to decide a dispu te between rival claimants for a ryotwari patta, this Court approved the decision in T. Munuswami Naidu (died) and Others v. R. Venkata Reddi and Others, in which the same interpretation had been given to section 56 of the Andhra Act as a result of an elaborate discussion. This Court further held that Cherukuru Muthayya v. Gadde Gopala-Krishnayya which was also decided by a Full Bench but had been overruled by a larger Full Bench in M unuswamis case (supra) had been wrongly decided. 3. Faced with the above situation, learned counsel for the plaintiffs sought support for a contrary view from the two Madras cases on which reliance had been placed by the High Court in the impugned judgment. We may state at once that those cases are wholly irrelevant for deciding this case and that the High Court erred in taking them into consideration. In this connection all that need be stated is that section 56 of the Madras Act was repealed by Madras Act XXXIV of 1958 and both the Madras cases above mentioned were decided after section 56 had ceased to be part of the Madras Act. That those cases may well have been differently decided if section 56 had continued to be part of the Madras Act was recognized by Ramachandra Iyer, J ., who decided Krishnaswami Thevars case (supra) with the following observations:- "The Abolition Act as originally enacted contained section 56 which conferred in terms a power to decide any dispute as to who the lawful ryot of a holding is. Sub-section (2) provided for an appeal from such a decision. If that provision were still to exist, it can be said that as the question whether the person was the lawful ryot or not was one to be decided by the Settlement Officer, the issue of ryotwari patta by him presumably after such decision could not be challenged in a civil court; to that extent there would be an ouster of the jurisdiction of the civil court. But section 56(1) has been repealed by Act XXXIV of 1958. There is now no machinery to decide the case of a disputed claim to patta. Thus, if a ryot is entitled to the ryoti land before the notification, he would by virtue of that rig ht be entitled to the grant of ryotwari patta. There is nothing in the procedure to be adopted for the grant of patta under section 11, to justify an adjudication of title. Nor is there anything in the nature of the patta itself to show that there must have been an adjudication of title in favour of the pattadar." Krishnaswami Thevars case was followed in Sanjeevi Naickers case which is again a Single Bench decision in which Ramamurti, J., also made a reference to the repeal of section 56 of the Madras Act by a later Madras enactment. 4. In the above view of the matter no assistance can be drawn by learned counsel for the plaintiff who has to meet the challenge of the provisions of section 56 because that section was a part of the Madras Act on the 1st of October, 1953, and continues to be so in so far as its application to the district of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh is concerned, the repeal of that section by the Madras Legislature being wholly ineffective in so far as territories forming part of the State of Andhra are concerned. The only other case to which reference was made by learned counsel for the plaintiff was Pinninty Peda Govindayya v. Pinninty Sub barao. That was a case in which sections 3, 4, 7, 12 and 14 of the Andhra Inams (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1956 and rule 15 of the rules framed thereunder came in for interpretation. The relevancy of the case is not apparent inasmuch as it makes no reference to a provision similar to the one enacted by section 56 of the Madras Act as forming part of the statute or rules then under consideration. We do not see, therefore, that the plaintiffs case is in any manner advanced by the decision cited.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]As already pointed out, Chittoor district (in which lie the lands in dispute) continued to be governed by the provisions of the Madras Act as they stood on the 1st of October, 1953, even after its transfer to the State of Andhra, by re ason of the mandate of section 53 above extracted. After that date the Madras Act could be amended or repealed by the Andhra Pradesh legislature but till that was done, the district of Chittoor would continue to be governed by the Madras Ac t in its unamended form and as it stood on that date. We make it clear, however, that the correction of the error on which the assumption was based would not really make any difference to the decision of the case inasmuch as the relevant provisions of the Madras Act, as they stood on the 1st of October, 1953, are practically the same as the corresponding provisions of the Andhra Act. Apart from sections 3 and 11 to 15, it is section 56 of the Madras Act which clinches the matterSub-section (2) of the section categorically declares that the decision of the Tribunal deciding the appeal shall be final and not liable to be questioned in any court of law, in so far as it relates to any of the matters covered by sub-section (1). It goes without saying that if no appeal is filed, a similar finality shall attach to the decision of the Settlement Officer. One of such matters is covered by clause (c) of sub-section (1) and embraces the determination of the question as to who the lawful ryot in respect of any holding is. Questions which a Settlement Officer may be called upon to decide under the said clause (c) would certainly include such as may have resulted from a dispute between two or mo re persons as to who of them is the lawful ryot; and once a dispute of that type has been adjudicated upon by the Settlement Officer, his decision becomes final unless an appeal is filed before the Tribunal, in which event it is the decision of the Tribunal to which finality attaches. In either case the decision is not liable to be called into question in any Court of law. We need not go into further details on the question of interpretation of section 56 of the Madras Act inasmuch as our view is fully supported by another decision of this Court in Muddada Chayanna v. Karnam Narayana and Another etc4. In the above view of the matter no assistance can be drawn by learned counsel for the plaintiff who has to meet the challenge of the provisions of section 56 because that section was a part of the Madras Act on the 1st of October, 1953, and continues to be so in so far as its application to the district of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh is concerned, the repeal of that section by the Madras Legislature being wholly ineffective in so far as territories forming part of the State of Andhra are concernedThe relevancy of the case is not apparent inasmuch as it makes no reference to a provision similar to the one enacted by section 56 of the Madras Act as forming part of the statute or rules then under consideration. We do not see, therefore, that the plaintiffs case is in any manner advanced by the decision cited.