JUDGMENT - S. P. KOTVAL, J. :

The order in this Special Civil Application shall also govern the disposal of Special Civil Application No. 60 of 1958. The facts as also the points . arising in both these Special Civil Applications are common and a common argument was addressed by consent of counsel concerned. It will be sufficient to state the facts in Special Civil Application No. 59 of 1958.

(2) The fourth respondent Ganesh was a protected lessee of the petitioner. On 23-12-52, the land-holder gave him notice terminating his lease under the provisions of S. 9(1) of the Berar Regulation of Agricultural Leases Act on the ground that the former required the land for cultivating it personally. In pursuance of this notice, the fourth respondent consented to the delivery of possession and possession was delivered to the landholder on 1-4-1953. A few months later, on 23-8-1954, the former protected lessee Ganesh Put in an application under S. 9(6) of the Act against the petitioner, and three other persons who were impleaded because there was some dispute as to who was the landholder. By that application, the fourth respondent prayed that field No. 111 of which he was the former protected lessee should be placed in his possession because the landholder had instead of

cultivating the field at home as stated in his notice under S. 9(1) leased it out to another person Kashirao, the seventh respondent. The application was heard by the Sub-Divisional Officer, Achalpur, who dismissed it, and in appeal the Additional Deputy Commissoner maintained the dismissal of the application. In second appeal a division Bench of the Bombay Revenue Tribunal set aside the decisions of the Sub-Divisional Officer and the Additional Deputy Commissioner and allowed the application. The short question which arises for decision upon this petition may now be stated,

(3) Section 8(l)(g) of the Act runs as follows: "Notwithstanding any agreement, usage, decree or order of a court of law, the lease of any land held by a protected lessee shall not be terminated except under orders of a Revenue Officer made on any of the following grounds, namely: x x x x x

(g) he has been served with a notice by the landholder as provided in S. 9". Section 9(1) runs as follows:

"Notwithstanding anything contained in S. 8 the landholder may terminate the lease of a protected lessee by giving him notice in writing delivered not less than three months before the commencement of the next agricultural year stating therein the reasons for such termination and the description of the area in respect of which it is proposed to terminate the lease, if the landholder requires the land for cultivating the land personally." The other provisions of S. 9 give the protected lessee a right to question the notice served under S. 9(1) if it is not bona fide and also give the lessee an option to give up some other land than the land regarding which notice has been given. With these provisions we are not immediately concerned. But S. 9(6) provides as follows:

"If on re-entering upon any land after termination of the lease of a protected lessee in accordance with this section, a landholder fails at any time during such period as may be prescribed to utilise the land for the purpose for which the lease was terminated, the dispossessed lessee may apply to the Revenue Officer to put him in possession of the land from the commencement of the agricultural year next following; and the Revenue Officer shall, after hearing the landholder and making such enquiry as he deems fit, put the lessee in possession, of the land if he is satisfied of the failure and also award him such sum by way of compensation as the Revenue Officer may consider sufficient."

(4) The application which was preferred was expressly made under S. 9(6) of the Act. The view which prevailed with the Sub-Divisional Officer as also the Additional Deputy Commissioner was that the landholder had taken possession in contravention of the provisions of the Be

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