Judgment

Thomas, J.-Whether a lease is of land appurtenant to a building a vice-versa continues to remain an issue providing pabulum for many a litigation. In the instant case also that issue has assumed decisive dimension. Our efforts to have this case settled out of court did not fructify despite the active role played by counsel on both sides. So we have to determine this issue on the facts of this case.

2. This case reached the Supreme Court after drifting through a long stream of vicissitudes. Genesis of this litigation is traced to a lease created during pre-independence days when one of the two build­ings situated in the disputed property was rented out by its owner, (a bureaucrat then stationed at Delhi) to one Somappa Naik. On 28.7.1951 a new lease deed was executed by the said Somappa Naik in respect of the disputed property having an area of 1.06 acres containing the same pucca residential building thereon, for a monthly rent of Rs. 9/-. When the lessee continued under the lease he assigned his rights in favour of the present respondent (who is a practicing advocate of Kassargod District Court) on 17.8.1968.

3. When the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 (for short “the Act”) ca