JUDGMENT - B.H. MARLAPALLE, J.:---The petitioner was the owner of agricultural land admeasuring 3 acres and 4 gunthas in Survey No. 28 and 3 acres and 7 gunthas in Survey No. 29 of village Khadaki Ghat in tq. and dist. Beed and the respondent was a protected tenant over the land. The respondent was declared as owner of the land under section 38-E of the Hyderabad Tenancy Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 (the Act for short) and by an order dt. 18-12-1959, the Agricultural Lands Tribunal had fixed the price of the subject land in both the survey numbers at Rs. 4,823.50 ps. and directed the price be paid in six equal instalments, commencing from 21st April, 1960. The period of payment expired in 1965 and therefore, the tribunal issued four notices of demand against the tenant and despite these notices, the tenant did not deposit the purchase price of the land. The landlord, therefore, filed an application before the tribunal on 20-10-1974 for the reliefs:

(1) that the declaration under section 38-E was ineffective and

(2) recovery of possession of the subject land.

2.The tribunal by its order dt. 21st January, 1982 held that the declaration of the transfer of ownership was ineffective as per the provisions of section 38(6)(d) of the Act and turned down the claim for possession of the land in favour of the landlord. In appeal, the Deputy Collector, was pleased to cancel the said certificate and directed the tribunal to fix the purchase price afresh. The Deputy Collector, further held that the original declaration could not be cancelled and could not be held to be ineffective and the price of the land would be fixed afresh. Being dissatisfied with this order passed by the Deputy Collector, the landlord approached the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal (M.R.T) by way of revision and by the impugned judgment and order it remanded the matter to the Tahsildar and directed to limit the scope of his enquiry only to the extent of recovery of the price money fixed along with interest and if such amount could not be recovered as arrears of land revenue, then only it be declared that the transfer of land as ineffective under proviso to sub-section (3) of section 38-E of the Act.

3.The learned Single Judge of this Court (B.N. Deshmukh, J.) did not agree with an earlier view taken by another learned Single Judge (Kanade, J.) in Writ Petition No. 564/1980, in his order dt. 17-11-1987, and therefore, observed that the matter required to be considered by a larger Bench. The case was, therefore, referred to the learned Chief Justice pursuant to our order dt. 15-11-1999 and as per the order passed by the learned Chief Justice, the matter has been placed before us to decide the following issue viz.:

(I) Whether the transfer of ownership in favour of the tenant under section 38-E of the Act becomes ineffective merely on the default of payment of the entire purchase price or

(II) such a transfer would not be ineffective unless the two conditions are satisfied viz.

(i) the erstwhile tenant fails to pay the entire purchase price and

(ii) inspite of proceedings for recovery by the tribunal, the purchase price could not be recovered from the said tenant.

4.Section 38 of the Act provides for the rights of the protected/ordinary tenant and sub-section (1) states that a protected tenant or as the case may be ordinary tenant (not being a tenant holding land from a landholder who is a serving member of the armed forces) shall at any time after the commencement of the Act be entitled to purchase the landlord's interest in the land held by the former as a protected tenant or, as the case may be, ordinary tenant. As per sub-section (2), a protected tenant who desires to exercise the right conferred by sub-section (1), shall make an offer to the landholder stating the price which he is prepared to pay for the landholder's interest in the land upto 15 times for dry land or 8 times for wet land, (irrigated by wells) and 6 times of wet lands, irrigated by other sources of the rent

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