( 1 ) THE three petitioners seems to be terribly upset with the grant of occupancy rights in favour of the 3rd respondent-fakeerawwa who is none other than the own sister of the mother of the present petitioners. There appears to have litigation between the parties to acquire at least half share in the properties, which has been succeeded by fakeerawwa as the sole legatee under the registered will executed in her favour by her mother hanumawa on 28-5-1984.

( 2 ) IT is a matter of record that land bearing sy. No. 96/3a measuring5 acres 25 guntas of sattoor village, dharwad taluk, is a devastana nirandara land and this was granted by the government to the then vahivatdar, i. e. , one poojari maribasya who happens to be the adopted son of poojari lankya by an order dated 12-3-1851 in No. 24/71-72. Subsequently, after the death of poojari maribasya, the name of hanumawwa, his daughter has been entered in the year 1918-1919 as the inamdar, in the inam 'b' register and the said land was covered by the Provisions of the Karnataka certain inams abolition act. These facts are placed on record by the tahsildar of dharwad taluk who has also produced the relevant inam register in support of the same.

( 3 ) ADMITTEDLY, the said hanumawwa as inamdar was in personal cultivation of the lands as on 1-3-1974, which is the appointed date for the purpose of grant of occupancy rights in respect of the Karnataka certain inams abolition Act, 1977 (in short, the inams act' ). Pursuant to Section 4 of the inams Act, the land is vested in the government, but as provided under Section 5 thereof, right was reserved to various category of persons, including the inamdars, who were in personal cultivation of the land on the appointed date to claim occupancy right in respect thereof, provided an application in form I was filed by him/her on or before 31-3-1991.

( 4 ) IT is also seen from the records that though the said hanumawwa was cultivating the land as an inamdar on the appointed date, she died on 13-10-1988 and that she herself had not filed any application in the prescribed form claiming the occupancy right of the land in question. But as seen from the records, her daughter fakeerawwa (r3) who was residing with her, was jointly cultivating the land and that hanumawwa had executed a registered will bequeathing all the rights, titles and interests in the land in her favour. On the strength of the said will, fakeerawwa (r3) filed applications in form 1 on 10-3-1991 and 25-3-1991, claiming occupancy right in respect of the lands in question. The land tribunal, by the impugned order dated 24-2-1997 (Annexure-G) acceded to her prayer.

( 5 ) BEFORE coming to the ground of challenge taken on behalf of the petitioners for invalidating the impugned order of the tribunal, it may be worthwhile to mention here that out of the three petitioners, who are own sisters, two of them, namely, basawwa and gangawwa (petitioners 1 and 2) had filed a suit being original suit No. 6 of 1991 before the additional civil judge, dharwad for a declaration that the will executed in favour of fakeerawwa (respondent 3) is ab initio void and also for partition and separate possession of the lands in respect of their shares, but later they have filed an application in the suit under order xxiii, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure accompanying with an affidavit for withdrawal of the suit. Accordingly the suit was dismissed as withdrawn on 6-1-1993. At the time of withdrawal no permission was sought for refiling of the suit for the aforesaid reliefs and thus the issues sought to be raised therein became non-justice able any further. In the affidavit filed along with the application for withdrawal of the suit, the plaintiffs had clearly admitted that the will executed by hanumawwa in favour of respondent 3 was genuine. It further appears that despite the said facts, the petitioners have filed another suit original suit No. 199 of 1997 in the court of the civil judge, se