JUDGMENT - (1) The question referred to the Full Bench is whether, under the provisions of the Bombay tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, the Mamlatdar can entertain and decide and decide an application filled by a landlord for a declaration that his opponent, who claims to be his tenant, is not a tenant under the said Act.

(2) There is no specific provision in the Act providing for such an application being made to the Mamlatdar, Section 70, however provides:

"For the purposes of this Act the following shall be the duties and functions to be performed by the Mamlatdar -

(b) to decide whether a person a tenant or a protected tenant or a permanent tenant. It is therefore, the duty and function of the Mamlatdar to decide whether a person is a tenant The power to decide whether a person is a tenant. necessarily includes the power to decide that the person is not a tenant. This power is, however, too be exercised by the Mamlatdar, as stated in this section, for the purposes of the Act. In view of these words in the section, in Magaubhai Patel v. Bombay Revenue Tribunal Special Civil Appln No. 278 of 1957 the learned Judges were inclined to take the view that the Mamlatdar will have

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