JUDGMENT.-The plaintiff is the appellant. The suit was filed by him for a permanent injunction restraining the defendant from interfering with his possession on the ground that he is a cultivating tenant in respect of the suit properties entitled to the protection of the Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, hereinafter referred to as the Act. The facts as now found by the Courts below simply stated are as follows:

2. The plaintiff is the second son of one Bagavathi Goundan. The defendant leased the suit properties to the plaintiff and his father sometime in the year 1950. There is no dispute that both these lessees were contributing their physical labour and, therefore, they are cultivating tenants within the meaning of the Act. On 20th May, 1966 the plaintiff’s father Bagavathi Gounden died leaving three sons, including the plaintiff, four daughters and his wife as his legal heirs. Sometime after the death of Bagavathi Gounden, except the plaintiff the other two sons, four daughters and wife purported to convey their interest in the tenancy in favour the defendant lessor. When the defendant, on the ground that the interest of some of the lessees had been surrendered to him by the assignment, tried to interfere with the possession of the plaintiff, it resulted in the filing of this suit. A number of points were considered by the Courts below, but none of them survives for consideration in this second appeal except the question of the effect of the surrender by the two sons, four daughters and wife of their interest in the lease-hold property. This question also involves a consideration, as to who are the cultivating tenants, who succeeded the father Bagavathi Gounden and what were their respective interests in the lease-hold property.

3. ‘Cultivating tenant’ is defined in the Act as including the heirs of a cultivating tenant. In Venkataswami Reddiar v. Sundaramoorthy1, a Division Bench of this Court to which I was a party held that in order to get the benefits of the Act the legal representatives also should satisfy the condition of personal cultivation as a required in the definition of cultivating tenant. In the decision in Sudalaimuthu v. Palaniyandavan2, the Supreme Court had held that in the case of a joint family, if one of the members of a joint family contributes his labour that would suffice to hold that the family is entitled to the protection under the Act. Therefore, on the death of Bagavathi Gounden his legal representatives were entitled to claim the protection of the Act, if anyone of them satisfied that he had personally contributed his labour in the cultivation of such land. The plaintiff himself as one of the members of the joint family had claimed that he was contributing his labour in the cultivation of the land and that is not disputed. Therefore, the legal representatives of Bagavathi Gounden are also cultivating tenants, within the meaning of the Act.

4. The next question for consideration is whether one or more of the tenants could surrender their interest in the leasehold lands in favour of the lessor. The learned Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant contended that in a case where one of the lessees surrenders his interest to the lessor, the lessees interest is enlarged and. the lessor does not derive any interest at all. According to the learned counsel either all the lessees should surrender the right in favour of the lessor or none at all. In other words, as a proposition of law, he submitted that one lessee cannot surrender his interest in the leasehold when the other lessees do not agree for the same. On the other hand, the learned Counsel for the respondent submitted that there is no prohibition either in the Cultivating Tenants Protection Act or the Transfer of Property Act or any other law prohibiting the surrender of the interest of one of the lessees in favour of the lessor. According to the learned counsel such a surrender is recognised in law in the decided cases. In such a case, it was further

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