JUDGMENT - MOHTA V.A., J.:—The following question needs to be answered in this reference.

"Whether a statutory tenancy of a land owned by a public trust is heritable under the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbha Region) Act, 1958 (the Vidarbha Act)?"

2. In a large part of the State, land tenancies were governed by the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (the Bombay Act). In Vidarbha, they were governed by different enactments. The Vidarbha Act was enacted in the year 1958, as the preamble itself indicates, "with a view to bringing the status and rights of tenants as far as possible in line with those prevailing in certain other parts of the State". In the instant matter we are chiefly concerned with sections 54 and 129 of the Vidarbha Act, which we reproduce for ready reference:

"54. (1) Where a tenant dies, the landlords shall be deemed to have continued the tenancy

(a) if such tenant was member of an undivided Hindu family to the surviving member of the said family, and

(b) if such tenant was not a member of an undivided Hindu family, to his heirs, on the same terms and conditions on which such tenant was holding at the time of his death.

(2) Where the tenancy i

Click Here to Read the rest of this document