The central legal point established in the judgment is the applicability of the permanent non-alienation condition under R. 43(8) of the Mysore Land Revenue Code to the sale transaction of agricultural land, leading to its invalidation under S. 4(1) of the Act.

1. Writ petition by the legal heir of a purchaser of a piece of agricultural land measuring 2 acres 6 guntas in survey No. 139 of Chintamani Village in terms of the sale deed dated 16-7-1965.

2. The petitioner is aggrieved by the order dated 17-7-1998 (copy at Annexure-B) passed by the Assistant Commissioner invalidating the sale transaction and affirmed in appeal by the Deputy Commissioner in terms of his order dated 13-2-2004 (copy at Annexure-A) under the provisions of Karnataka Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (PTCL) Act, 1978 (for short the Act) and therefore the writ petition.

3. In between these two orders, the petitioner had filed an appeal before the Deputy Commissioner once earlier which though was dismissed in terms of the order dated 2-8-2000, writ petition against this order came to be allowed in terms of the order dated 12-9-2000 passed in writ petition No. 28990/2000 by this Court and the matter having been remanded by the Deputy Commissioner for fresh consideration of the appeal, the Deputy Commissioner has passed the order now challenged in the present round of writ petition.

4. Mr. Reddappa, learned counsel for the petitioner has raised several contentions. It is firstly urged that the predecessor of the petitioner having purchased the land in the year 1965 and having enjoyed the land without interruption for more than thirty years even by the time the application was filed, the petitioner had perfected his title even by way of adverse possession by the time the proceedings were initiated under the Act.

5. It is alternatively contended that the petitioner/father of the petitioner at any rate had enjoyed the land for a period of more than twelve years even by the time the Act came into force i.e. by 1-1-1979 and, therefore, also the petitioner had perfected the title to the land even by adverse possession, inasmuch as, it is the version of the petitioner that the grant of the year 1949-50 in terms of the Grant Order dated 9-2-1950 was not a grant which had retained the title with the Government, but under which the title had passed on to the grantee and, therefore, the period for prescribing title is only twelve years.

6. In support of such submission, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the decision of the Division Bench of this Court in the case of Shanthakumar v. Deputy Commissioner, Chickmagalur, reported in ILR 2004 Kar 4006. Submission is that in the absence of a clear finding by the appellate authority as to whether the period of non-alienation is 12 years or 30 years in the context of the nature of the grant and particularly the original grant records being not available for which the Deputy Commissioner though had called the same from the Tahsildar, the Tahsildar having replied that the grant records were not available, the order passed by the Deputy Commissioner is not sustainable; that the matter requires to be remanded to the Deputy Commissioner for a precise answer on this question in terms of the ratio laid down by the Division Bench of this Court in Shanthakumars case.

7. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also contended that the non-availability of the original records, non-examination of the same and in the absence of the precise date on which the grant was made and the condition subject to which the land had been granted, the authorities could not have given uninformed findings to hold that the grant was subject to the condition that the land should not be alienated for good and, therefore, the transfer of the year 1965 was in violation of such conditions.

8. In support of such submission, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the single Bench decision of this Court in the case of Nagendrappa v. Deputy Commissioner, Davanagere, reported in ILR 2002 Kar 2670.

9. Yet another contention urged on behalf of the petitioner by Sri Reddappa, learned counsel for the petitioner is that both the vendor and the vendee i.e., the grantee and the purchaser belon