Case: Ramswarup Guru Chhote Balakdas Vs. Motiram Khandu Patil &amp; Others

2. The appellant is the mahant of a public and religious trust called Kabir Nirnay Mandir. The trust is being administered at Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh and the bulk of its properties is situate there, except three pieces of land at Vadjai, a village in Dhulia District. Respondent 1 is the tenant of two out of these three pieces of land situate at Vadjai.The Act was originally passed in 1948 but was drastically amended by Amendment Act, XIII of 1956 which came into force on August l, 1956. The Amendment Act inducted into the Act inter alia Secs. 32 to 32R and Secs. 88A to 88D. Sections 32 to 32R deal with purchase of land by tenants. Sub-section (1) of S. 32 provides that on the first day of April 1957, i. e., the tillers day, every tenant shall, subject to the other provisions of this section and the provisions of the next succeeding sections, be deemed to have purchased from his landlord the land held by him as a tenant. In certain cases the said date, viz., April 1, 1957 has been postponed but we are not concerned in this appeal with those provisions nor with any such postponed date. Secs. 88A to 88C exclude the operation of sees. 32 to 32R to land specified therein.

Court's reasoning:
Thus for eligibility for an exemption certificate three conditions have to be satisfied: (1) that the land in question is the property of a trust or an institution for public religious worship, (2) that the trust is or is deemed to be registered underthe Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, and (3) that the entire income of such lands is appropriated for the purposes of such trust. There is no dispute with regard to conditions (1) andall the three conditions are satisfied and a certificate is obtained by the trust under sub-section (2) of S. 88-B, Ss. 32 to 32R would not apply to the land belonging to such trust and the tenant of such land cannot be regarded a deemed purchaser under theis not in dispute that the present trust is one of the kinds of trusts to which the Act was made applicable as from February 1,Section 28 is couched in general terms it cannot mean that all trusts registered under the Madhya Pradesh Act are to be deemed to be registered under the Bombay Act irrespective of whether they are still situate in Madhya Pradesh and are liable to be administered underthe Madhya Pradesh Public Trusts Act, 1951. The aforesaid notification itself makes this clear by using the words "shall apply to the following classes of public trusts in the State to which the Act does not already apply......" These words indicate clearly that the Act is to apply to those trusts which as a result of the re-organisation of the State have come within the new State of Maharashtra and to which the Bombay Act did not apply. Therefore, the Act cannot apply and is not intended to apply to trusts which are still outside the State and within the Madhya Pradesh State. There can therefore be no doubt that such trusts in spite of the general language of Section 28 would still be governed by and administered under the Madhya Pradesh Act.If Section 28 were to be construed, as the appellant desires us to construe, there would be the anomalous position that the authorities under both the Acts can claim the right to supervise and control the administration and management of the trust properties. The curious result of such a construction would be that though the trust is situate and is administered at Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh the authorities under the Bombay Act can claim to control its management.7. There is no dispute that the trust is administered at Burhanpur and the bulk of its properties, except the three pieces of lands situate in the District of Dhulia, are all situate in the Madhya Pradesh State.The fact that a part of its property is situate in Maharashtra State, though the trust is within Madhya Pradesh State, would not mean that the trust would be governed partly by the Madhya Pradesh Act and partly by the Bombay Act. Such a division of the Trust and its administration is not contemplated by either of the two Acts. It is therefore clear that the present Trust does not fall within the ambit of Section 28 and is not one of those trusts which can be deemed to be registered under the Bombay Act. That being so, it is obviously not a trust which fulfils the second condition of Section 88B of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act and the appellant cannot be said to be entitled to the certificate under that section.