The Karnataka scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain lands) Act, 1978 applies to all transfers of land granted to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled tribe person, and the period of limitation for acquiring the right of prescription against the State Government is 30 years.

( 1 ) THE petitioner, in this writ petition, has called in question the correctness and legality of the orders passed at Annexures-A and B by the Assistant Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner, respondents 2 and 3 herein respectively.

( 2 ) THE undisputed facts as disclosed from the impugned orders as well as the pleadings of the writ petition are that 1 acre 28 guntas of land in Sy. No. 748 of Sakrepatna village, Kadur Taluk, Chickamagalur District, was granted in favour of Krishna Naika, husband of respondent-4 Parvathi Bai, by the competent authority under the then Darkast rules, in proceedings No. GMSC. R. 22/55-56. Accordingly, a saguvali chit also came to be issued on 21-12-1956 under certain conditions. One such condition was that the grantee shall not alienate the granted land for a period of 15 years from the date of grant. However, the granted land came to be sold in favour of the petitioner by a registered sale deed dated 24-12-1963 for valuable consideration. It is the case of the petitioner that ever since the date of sale, he has been in possession and enjoyment of the said land.

( 3 ) AFTER coming into force of the Karnataka scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain lands) Act, 1978, (the Act for short), respondent-4, widow of late Krishna Naika, the original grantee, approached the Assistant commissioner to grant him relief under the Act. Her case was that the granted land was sold by her husband in contravention of the condition, of the grant and that therefore she was entitled for relief under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act. The Assistant Commissioner, having notified both parties and having held an enquiry, passed an order as per Annexure-A holding that the alienation made in the case was null and void as it was effected in contravention of the condition of the grant and that respondent-4 was entitled for restoration of the land.

( 4 ) AGGRIEVED by the said order, the petitioner took up the matter in appeal before the Deputy Commissioner, who, by an order made on 10-9-1985, dismissed the appeal upholding the order made by the Assistant commissioner. Hence this petition.

( 5 ) THE main contention urged in this writ petition is that, since the land was sold in favour of the petitioner, who is also a member of the Scheduled Caste, Section 4 of the act cannot be applied as there is no prohibition under the Act of transfer of the granted land in favour of a member of the same community. e. , Scheduled Caste/scheduled tribe. In that view, the argument is that the authorities below were not right in reaching the conclusion that the transfer of the granted land was null and void. The other contention taken in the writ petition is that, by virtue of the sale, the petitioner has been in continuous possession and enjoyment of the land in question and thus he acquired the right of prescription. Therefore, the authorities could not have passed an order disturbing his possession. In other words, the legal contention urged is that 12 years of limitation for purposes of right of prescription must be taken into account from the date of grant made in favour of the vendor of the petitioner.

( 6 ) I do not see any force or substance in any of these contentions. Dealing with the first contention, by a perusal of Section 4 and having regard to the scheme of the Act, it is clear that no exemption is provided from application of Section 4 of the Act to a case where a granted land came to be sold in favour of a person of the same community as that of his vendor. Further, clause (3) of sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Act provides :-" (E) "transfer" means a sale, gift, exchange, mortgage (with or without possession), lease or anyother transfer not being a partition among members of a family or a testamentary disposition and includes the creation of a charge or an agreement to sell, exchange, mortgage or lease or enter into any other transaction. "from the above, it is clear that exc