The A.P. Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 (Act 9 of 1977) only applies to lands assigned to landless poor persons.

P. A. CHOUDHARY, J.

( 1 ) ONE Muthyala Mogalaiah S/o Abbaiah was the owner of Ac. 2-20 guntas of land situated in Survey No. 1037 of Ranjal village, Nizamabad district. He acquired this land on assignment made by the District Revenue officer of Nizamabad by his proceedings dated 6-3-1969. The Tahasildar, bodhan in his proceedinss dated 10th of May, 1969 issued the Patta certificate to the said Mogalaiah. The land was assigned to Mogalaiah on payment oi concessional market value of Rs. 140/- per acre but subject to certain conditions one of which is that the land should not be alienable. However, the said Mogalaiah sold the land to the present writ petitioner dharma Reddy in the year 1970. The alienation of the aforementioned land by the said Mogalaiah in favour of Dharma Reddy was considered as being contrary to the above condition of the assignment relating to inalienability. Accordingly a notice was issued to the said Dharma Reddy under the provisions of the A. P. Assigned Land (Prohibition of Transfers) Act of 1977 (Act 9 of 1977) calling upon him to show cause why the lands purchased by Dharma Reddy from Mogalaiah should not be resumed by the government treating the sale by Mogalaiah as void. Dharma Reddy contended in substance that he had purchased these lands "from Mogalaiah for valuable consideration and that Mogalaiah himself had purchased those lands at concessional rate from the Government and that therefore, Act No. 9 of 1977 has no application. That argument was rejected by the authorities giving rise to the filing of this writ petition by Dharma Reddy. In this writ petition the only question is whether the above land sold by mogalaiah to Dharma Feddy falls under the provisions of the A. P. Assigned lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977.

( 2 ) BEFORE we examine that question fully, it may be noted that mogalaiah was a farmer in Bodhan Taluk who lost his lands by reason of construction of a Government project. G. O. Ms. No. 1294, Revenue dated 6-6-1955 envisages compensating such a person by giving him lands at concessional rates in lieu of the project affected lands. That G. O. provides for sale of lands, no dcubt. at concessional rates to all those persons who are affected by construction of irrigation projects. G. O. Ms. No. 1294 envisages the collection of the market value in twenty annual instalments, together with interest thereof. Under that G. O. , market value should be charged even from political sufferers. The Market Value of the lands would be determined by the Board of Revenue and the assignee of such lands would be liable to pay betterment contribution in addition to the market value. It is under the above mentioned G. O. Ms. No. 1294 Mogalaiah who had lost his lands by reason of the construction of a project got the present lands assigned to him. The question is whether A. P. Act 9 of 1977 is applicable to such lands.

( 3 ) THE Act No. 9/77 has been examined by me in some detail in t. Onnuramma vs. Tahsildar, Khadiri (1 ). In that decision I held that the act would be applicable to transactions of alienation that had taken place even prior to the commencement of the Act. That view has been approved by a Full Bench of this Court. The present question, however, is what category of assigned lands falls within the purview of Act No. 9 of 1977. The long title of Act 9 of 1977 refers to the policy of the Act as "to prohibit transfers of certain lands assigned to landless poor persons in the State of Andhra Pradesh". The word "assigned lands" is defined by is defined by Section 2 sub-section (1) to mean, lands assigned by the Government to the landless poor persons under the rules for the time being in force. A landless poor person is on? under that Act who owns an extent of land of not more than 2 1/2 acres of wet or 5 acres of dry. Section 3 of that Act prohibits transfer of assigned lands to a landless poor person for purposes of cultivation or as house sites. The above quoted parts of the Act clearl

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