( 1 ) THE respondents who claim to be the tenants in respect of S. No. 1194 admeasuring 5 acres 39 gunthas of village Anklav in Borsad Taluka of Kaira District filed the present suit under sec. 29 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act 1948 (hereinafter re- ferred to as the Tenancy Act for the sake of brevity) against the petitioner (original landlord) for recovering possession of that land. The Mamlatdar who heard the application decided on merits and held that the land consisted of two parts one of which had been under mortgage with the tenants and another had not been under any such mortgage with them. In respect of the land under mortgage he held that prior to the mortgage the tenants had been cultivating the land lawfully and had therefore been its tenants. He therefore applied sec. 25a of the Tenancy Act and made an order for possession of the land under mortgage in favour of the tenants. He dismissed the rest of the claim made by the tenants because according to him they had not proved that they were or have been the tenants in respect of that part of the land.

( 2 ) BOTH the parties appealed against that order to the Collector. The Deputy Collector