Case: Rentala Latchaiah &amp; Ors Vs. Chimmapudi Subrahmanyam

2. The facts necessary for the disposal of this appeal are as follows. One Ramalingayya died in the year 1941 possessed of considerable properties including the lands which formed the subject matter of the above mentioned civil revision petitions. Before his death he had adopted the petitioner before the High Court one Chimmapudi Subrahmanyam, the respondent before this Court. He came into possession of the properties of his adoptive father after the latters death. Ramalingayyas widow, however raised a dispute about the factum and validity of the adoption and claimed the properties as the heir of her husband. Subramanyam filed a suit in the court of the District Munsif, Khammam for a declaration that he was the adopted son of Ramalingayya. Pending the disposal of the suit, however Ramalingayyas widow, who was the 4th respondent in C. R. P. No. 36 of 1952 before the High Court claimed to have her name registered in the register maintained under the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act of 1317 F. by virtue of the provisions of S. 59 of that Act. The land revenue authorities registered the widow Kaveramma as pattedar and dispossessed the adopted son of all the lands petting Kaveramma in possession thereof. The adopted son, amended his plaint by including a prayer for possession. During the pendency of the suit, the widow Kaveramma was prohibited by an order of injunction from dealing with the lands in any way. This was sometime in the year 1944. The suit of the adopted son was decreed by the trial court on March 24, 1951 both with regard to the declaration of the right of adoption and succession as also possession over the lands mentioned in the schedule to the plaint. Thereafter, sometime in the year 1952 (the exact date does not appear from the records before us) Kaveramma leased the lands which were the subject matter of the civil revision petitions to the appellants before this Court. This is borne out by the judgment of the District Collector, Khammam dated March 19, 1959 and the petition for special leave to this Court dated October 18, 1962. Kaveramma preferred an appeal from the decree passed against her and this was dismissed by the High Court in 1954. The adopted son put the decree in execution and got delivery of possession through the court in August 1954. It appears that very soon thereafter in September 1954 the appellants surrendered possession of the lands to him and executed a deed in respect thereof. Notwithstanding that, about a year afterwards, they filed a petition on October 7, 1955 for possession of the lands alleging that they had been in possession for "the last six years in the capacity of tenants". Their allegation further was that the adopted son and his mother had dispossessed them from the suit lands and they therefore prayed for being put hack into possession. This claim was preferred under S. 32 (1) of the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act 1950. The Tahsildar made an order in favour of the appellants in July 1958 which was upheld in appeal to the Collector in March, 1959. This led to the revision applications before the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The High Court allowed the Civil Revision Petitions and this has led to the appeal.

Reasoning: 4. The appellants before this Court never were the tenants of Ramalingayya. They were inducted on the land by his widow after the decree of the suit for declaration of title and possession in favour of the adopted son. After the passing of the decree, the possession of the widow could only be that of a trespasser and it was not open to her to create any right in the land in favour of anybodyThis would indeed be a very strange provision of the law and would if upheld, amount to encouraging trespass on the land by persons who had no shadow of title and creating rights in favour of others although they themselves had no title to the land. The meaning of the word asami shikmi" in the definition of the tenant in S. 2 (v) does not appear from any provision of the Act but our attention was drawn to the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act, S. 2 (13), according to which "asami shikmi means a lessee, whether holding under an instrument or under an oral agreement, and includes a mortgage of an asami shikmis rights with possession but does not include a lessee holding directly under Government". In our opinion, this does not help the appellants for the definition shows that a person who claims to be an asami shikmi had to be a lessee either holding under a document of lease or under an oral agreement5. The position might have been different if the appellants had been inducted on the lands by the widow after her recognition as a pattedar by the revenue authorities and before the disposal of the suit against her; but, we are not concerned with that situation. The High Court had considered at some length the question whether she could create any tenancy rights when there was an injunction restraining her from alienating any property. We do not think it was necessary to go into that question for normally the order of injunction which was passed as an interlocutory measure would not survive the decree of the trial CourtSuch is not the position in the case before us. Kaveramma did not induct the tenants on the land in the normal course of management of the property. She put them in possession when she had lost her right to be there and consequently the decision of this Court in Dahya Lalas case 1963 (3) SCR l = (AIR 1964 SC 1320  ), can be of no assistance to the appellants before us8. It will, therefore, be noticed that the scheme of the Bengal Tenancy Act was entirely different from the provisions of the Act we have to construe. There occupancy ryots were protected altogether from ejectment but so long as they were non-occupancy ryots they were also protected except under conditions mentioned in S. 44. Here too the Act would have protected them if their original induction was lawful so that they could be said to be lawfully cultivating the landsThis was. I think, a right to hold the land for the purpose of cultivating it within the meaning of S. 5, Cl. 2 the defendants are ryots, and the only right of the person who has obtained possession of the zamindari is to the rent payable for the land, and not to the khas possession of the land itself, unless they can do so under the provisions of the Tenancy Act10. The facts in the Calcutta cases were different from the case before us and the Bengal Tenancy Act gave protection to persons cultivating the land in circumstances which do not obtain here. It would, therefore, not be right to hold. on the basis of the decisions in the Calcutta High Court, that although the person who inducted the tenants on the land was found to be a trespasser on the date of such induction, the tenants continued to have a right to be on the land against the will of the true owner.