The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of 'gift' under the Kerala Land Reforms Act and the court's authority to look into the real nature of a transaction despite its nomenclature.

1. The Taluk Land Board, Mukundapuram (for short 'the TLB') has determined the extent of land to be surrendered by the 1st respondent as per S.85 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act (for short'the Act'). It was finally determined that the 1st respondent shall surrender 3.97.625 acres of land, when the TLB's order was revised in a Civil Revision Petition disposed of by this Court. The Tahsildar took possession of the excess land from the 1st respondent on 8-1-1977. Subsequently, the Kerala Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, Act 27 of 1979 came into force on 7-7-1979, inserting sub-section IA in S.84 of the Act As per the said sub-section, a transfer "effected by means of a gift deed executed during the period commencing on 1-1-1970 and ending with 5-11-1974 by a person owning or holding land in excess of the ceiling area, in favour of his son or daughter or the son or daughter of his predeceased son or daughter" is deemed to be valid. (There are some other conditions also to be satisfied to have the benefits of the sub-section, but among those conditions only one is relevant in this case, and reference to that condition will be made later). Sub-section (I) of S.84 (inserted by Act 27 of 1979) entitles a person to apply, within 60 days of the coming into force of the said Amendment Act, to the Taluk Land Board for restoration of the ownership or possession or both of any land covered by S 84(1A). Availing the said right, the 1st respondent along with his two sons (who are respondents 2 and 3) filed an application for restoration of an area of 2.56 acres of land. It is stated in the application that the 1st respondent had executed two gift deeds on 8-8-1972, one is deed No. 2294 in favour of the 3rd respondent and the other is deed No. 2296 in favour of the 2nd respondent, each for an area of 1.28 acres. The TLB revised its earlier order and found that there is no excess land to be surrendered by the 1st respondent and directed the Tahsildar to return the lands already taken possession of. Aggrieved by the aforesaid revised order of the TLB, this Civil Revision Petition has been filed by the State of Kerala.

2. Two contentions are raised by the learned Government Pleader in this revision. The first is that the TLB was wrong in holding that the two deeds are gift deeds since those instruments are clearly sale deeds. The second contention is that the benefit envisaged in S.84(1 A) of the Act cannot be extended to those lands already assigned on registry before the coming into force of the KLR. (Amendment) Act, 1979. According to the learned Government Pleader, the land surrendered by the 1st respondent was assigned by the Land Board as provided in S.96 of the Act and the assignees had paid the first instalment of the purchase price thereof. The TLB took the view that those deeds, though styled as sale deeds, are in effect, instruments of gifts made by the 1st respondent. The second contention does not appear to have engaged the attention of the TLB.

3. The two deeds were executed by the 1st respondent on the same day as mentioned above. They are styled as sale deeds and the sale consideration mentioned in each of the deeds is Rs. 2000/-. But no amount was, in fact received by the executant. Each of the transferees was directed to pay a sum of Rs. 1366.67 to a creditor of the executant. According to the recitals in the deeds, the balance sale consideration was adjusted towards "love and affection" of the executant for the transferees. Thus, even as per the recitals in the deed, neither of the transferees had paid any amount to the executant. As to the direction stipulated in the deeds to pay off the antecedent debts of the executant, the TLB has found that the said debts were cleared by the executant himself. The learned Government Pleader does not dispute that the debts were cleared by the 1st respondent himself. It is also to be noted that there is no contention that the transferees had not obtained possession of the properties me