The Land Tribunal can determine rival claims for the issue of a purchase certificate to a cultivating tenant, and a purchase certificate obtained in a suo motu proceeding without notice to the opposing party is invalid and has no legal effect.

1. One of us sitting single when hearing the Civil Revision Petition felt that a clarification is called for of an earlier decision of us reported as Kochu Lakshmi v. Velayudhan and others (1981 KLT. 639 : 1980 KLN. 642). That is why this revision petition is referred to a Division Bench. The facts necessary to understand the dispute between the parties are the following:

2. The second respondent by name Indian Evangelical Lutheran Church Trust Association represented by its Manager filed an application before the Land Tribunal under S 72-B of the Kerala Land Reforms Act for purchase of the landlord's right. That application was properly notified and the revision petitioner was also given individual notice and he had filed an objection to it, but did not substantiate the same. The Land Tribunal after enquiry found that the applicant is a cultivating tenant entitled to purchase and therefore directed the issue of the purchase certificate to the Association. Long after the period of limitation to file the appeal was over the revision petitioner filed an appeal and applied to excuse delay stating that he knew about the order of the Land Tribunal only three or four days before the filing of the appeal. Anyhow the delay was excused and the Appellate Authority considered the evidence already on record and also the fresh evidence let in by both the parties to prove their respective claims for getting the purchase certificate. Pending the appeal, under a suo motu proceeding initiated by the Land Tribunal an order was passed to issue a purchase certificate to the revision petitioner. This order of the Land Tribunal was passed without notice to the Trust Association and overlooking the order passed earlier by the Land Tribunal to issue the purchase certificate to the applicant. This order was relied on by the appellant to press his claim before the Appellate Authority The Appellate Authority held that the appellant was only an employee of the Association and the real tenant is the Association itself. So the appeal was dismissed.

It is against that this revision petition has been filed.

3. On the evidence considered by the Appellate Authority there is no scope for arriving at a conclusion different from that of the Appellate Authority. It is clearly established that the revision petitioner is only an employee of the Association and the cultivating tenant is the Association But the argument of the revision petitioner's counsel is that it was not competent for the Appellate Authority to go into the rival claims put forward by the petitioners and the Association and in support of that argument, reference was made to our decision in Kochu Lakshmi v. Velayudhan & others (1981 KLT. 639 : 1980 K.L.N. 642) The passage from that decision relied on in support of the argument finds a place in Para.9 of our decision.

That reads as follows:

"Disputes inter se among cultivating tenants is not a matter for determination of the Land Tribunal in an enquiry regarding the vesting of rights of the landlord and the intermediaries in the cultivating tenant by the issue of a purchase certificate to him."

it is wrong to refer to that passage out of its context and then rely on it in support of the revision petitioner's argument. In that case on the death of a tenant his eldest son was in possession of the leasehold. Besides him the deceased had other heirs Without making them parties this eldest son applied for the issue of a purchase certificate and obtained the same. Subsequently that property was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. The eldest son claimed exclusive right to the compensation amount and relied on S 72-K (2) of the Act which reads as follows:

"72K. Issue of certificate of purchase.

(1) xx xx xx

(2) The certificate of purchase issued under sub-section (1) shall be conclusive proof of the assignment to the tenant of the right, title and interest of the landowner and the intermediaries, if any, from the holding or portion thereof to which t