Andhra Pradesh High Court
Judges : G.RADHA KRISHNA RAO
M.Venkateswar Rao - Appellant
Versus
P.Venkata Raju - Respondent
C.R.P. No. 1064/89
Decided On : 03-02-90
Advocates Appeared :
Mr. G. Krishna Murthy,Mr. C. Sadasiva Reddy
Held : So long as the surrender as contemplated under Sec 14 of the Act has not been completed and final order has been passed in pursuance of an oral or written agreement if any entered between the landlord and the tenant, it cannot be said to be a final one, Unless and until final order has been passed with regard to the surrender by the Special Officer under Section 14 of the Act, the relationship of landlord and tenant cannot be said to have been extinguished So long as the relationship of landlord and tenant subsists the tenant must be deemed to have been treated as a cultivating tenant under Section 2 [c] of the Act The intendment of the Legislature to give the power to record the surrender to the Special Officer after giving atleast three months notice is to safeguard the interests of the tenants, when special forum has been contemplated for initiating the surrender proceedings the voluntary surrender as alleged to have taken place cannot be accepted and the transaction cannot be said to be contemplated and the landlord cannot take recourse under the Ordinary civil jurisdiction by filing a Civil suit, The Tenancy Court is competent to consider whether there is a valid surrender or not and also grant relief for recovery of possession in the event it comes to the conclusion that the procedure as contemplated by the Act is not followed
CRP Allowed
( 1 ) THE tenant is the petitioner. The landlord filed a suit for permanant injunction on the basis of the xerox copy of the agreement dated 1-3-1988 stating that surrender of land has been effected on 1-3-1983 itself but the tenant was making attempts to interfere with his possession on 3-5-88 the tenant resisted the application stating that the document has been fabricated and that the Civil Court has no jurisdiction to try this case as the suit itself is not maintainable. The tenant also took an objection that Section 14 (1) of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956 (hereinafter referred to as the Act ) contemplates a particular procedure to be followed in the case of surrender of holding by the cultivating tenant and the sunender proceedings have not been initiated or a cepted by the Tenancy Court, aad therefore the question of taking possession or surrendering possession in pursuance of the xerox copy of agreement does not arise. The landlord relied upon Ex. A-1, a bunch of photos and negatives and Ex. A-2, the photostat copy of letter executed by the tenant. The tenant relied upon Exs. B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4 and B 5 to show that there were long standing disputes between the landlord and the tenant in connection with eviction proceedings and the tenant succeeded in all his attempts and retained his possession and the relationship of landlord and tenant still exists as on the date of the filling of the suit.
( 2 ) THE learned District Munsif, on the basis of the various documents and also in view of the contentions granted temporary injunction observing that by that time the land was kept vacant and made ready for transplantation and it is established that the landlord himself has raised a mixed crop in the schedule property. On appeal by the tenant, the learned Subordinate judge found that though there is relinquishment of land, the surrender of possession of the land to the landlord is not in accordance with Section 14 of the Act, but the evidence on record shows that the tenant has surrendered possession of the land to the landlord and the landlord has been in possession of the same from 1-3-1988 and confirmed the order of temporary injuntion passed by the trial Court, it is against that concurrent finding the tenant filed the prebent revision petition.
( 3 ) THERE were long standing disputes between the landlord and the tenant. Several attempts have been made by the landlord to get the tenant evicted from the schedule land but he failed in all his attempts. W. P. Nos. 1782 end 1839 of 1985 filed by the tenant were allowed by this Court and W. A. Nos. 368 and 369 of 1980 filed by the landlord were dismissed holding that the tenant cannot be ordered to be evicted for default in payment of advance rentals on 1st October, 1986. The other proceedings that have been initiated also resulted in favour of the tenant.
( 4 ) THE learned counsel for the petitioner-tenant cotended that since a valuable right has been accrued to the tenant and this Court has also confirmed the same, it cannot be said that the contention of the landlord that the tenant had voluntarily surrendered possession of the land on 1-3-1988 must be accepted. There appears to be some force in the contention of the learned counsel.
( 5 ) IT is relevant to notice some of the relevant provisions of the Act. Section 10 creates rights in favour of the cultivating tenants. Section 10 (1) reads as follows :"10. Rights of cultivating tenants : (1) Every lease subsisting at the commencement of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1974, shall be deemed to be in perpetuity. "section 11 deals with the change in the ownership of the land. Section 12 deals with the resumption of possession of land leased out by landlord for his personal cultivation. Section 13 deals with the case of termination of tenancy. Section 14 deals with a case of surrender of holding by cultivating tenant.
( 6 ) ON the basis of the statutory right c
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