Judgment

AHMADI, J:- This appeal by special leave is filed against the judgment and order of the High Court of Madras whereby it remitted the matter to the Authorised Officer for disposal in accordance with law and in the light of the observations made therein. The facts giving rise to this appeal are as under :

The appellant-land owner held lands in Kanyakumari District in excess of 30 standard acres as on 6th April, 1960. He filed a return in Form No. 2 as required by the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961 (Act 58 of 1961), hereinafter called the Act. An enquiry was initiated by the Authorised Officer, Land Reforms, under S. 9(2)(b) of the Act. The appellant raised several objections but they were overruled. The Authorised Officer came to the conclusion that the family of the appellant could be reckoned to be of five members between 6th April, 1960 and 2nd October, 1962 and accordingly the land owner was entitled to 30 standard acres while his wife and daughter could hold 10 and 7.71 standard acres respectively as sridhana lands. The appellant was directed to state which lands he wished to be included in his holding and identify the lands which fell surplus, failing which the Authorised Officer said he would be constrained to select the surplus lands. The appellant was given five days time to make the option.

2. Feeling aggrieved by the decision of the Authorised Officer, the appellant preferred an appeal under S. 78(1) to the Lands Tribunal. The appellant complained that the Authorised Officer had wrongly added the lands of his minor sons, unmarried daughter and wife gifted to them long before 1960 in his holdings for determining if his total holdings exceeded the ceiling limit fixed under S. 5(2) of the Act. According to him the lands covered under the registered gift deed ought to have been excluded from his holding under the Explanation to S. 3(14) as a gift stood on par with a partition. As a limb of the same argument the appellant contended that subsequent to the filing of the appeal, the Act was drastically amended by Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Reduction of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1970 (Act 17 of 1970), hereinafter called the amending Act, whereby under S. 3(2), the date of commencement of this Act came to be fixed as 15th February, 1970 and the notified date came to be fixed as 2nd October, 1970 under S. 3(31) of the Act. Consequently, argued the appellant, his rights and liabilities with regard to the fixation of ceiling area were required to be worked out on the basis of the state of affairs existing on the revised date of commencement of the Act i.e. 15th February, 1970, fixed by virtue of the amendment in the Act. He also relied on the fact that his eldest son who was a minor on 10th April, 1968 had attained majority on 1st January, 1970 (in the High Court judgment the date is 1st October, 1970) i.e. before the commencement of the Act on 15th February, 1970, and also before the notified date i.e. 2nd October, 1970, and hence his land could not be included in his holding as was done by the Authorised Officer. It was also pointed out that his son had created a trust in respect of a portion of the land which would be exempt from the operation of the Act by virtue of S. 73(2)(b) of the Act. It was, therefore, submitted that his eldest son Laxminarayanan was a necessary party and the proper course would be to set aside the impugned order of the Authorised Officer and remand the matter for a de novo consideration after notice to his son. The second submission made was that on 10th April, 1968 when the impugned order was made the appellants wife was pregnant, she had since delivered a daughter and had gifted to her 5,71 acres of Vadaseri land on 1st October, 1970 and later an additional 5.06 acres of the land from the same village, which developments had to be taken into account as subsequent events touching the determination of the appellants ceiling area. Thirdly, it was pointed out that the appe