JUDGMENT - Tarkunde, J.

1. These four petitions have given rise to common questions relating to the interpretation of the proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 88B of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 and the constitutional validity of the said proviso and of Sections 32 to 32R of the said Act in so far as these provisions affect agricultural lands belonging to religious denominations. In order to appreciate the questions raised and the arguments advanced on either side, it would be enough to notice the facts involved in one of these petitions.

2. In Special Civil Application No. 1129 of 1964 the petitioners are the trustees of a public trust whose object is to maintain a Hindu temple and to continue the worship of the deity installed therein. The trust was created as early as in 1845. The trust owned an agricultural land in a village in the Nasik District. The first respondent was the tenant of the land from before 1957. The Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as "the Bombay Tenancy Act") which applied to this land was extensively amended by Bombay Act XIII of 1956. The amending Act added Sections 32 to 32R to the parent Act wit

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