Veeraswami, C.J.- This revision petition comes before us on a reference made by one of us. The petitioner is the tenant who applied for restoration of possession on an eviction order being reversed, in execution of which, he had been deprived of possession, but, the Revenue Divisional Officer dismissed the application on the ground of limitation.

The respondent applied for eviction in February, 1960 which was ordered. Since the tenant failed to deposit the rent within the time allowed, the order was put to execution and the landlord entered upon possession in July, 1960. Eventually the revision petition directed against the order of eviction was allowed by this Court on the ground that the respondent should have impleaded the newly inducted tenant. On the strength of this order of reversion, the tenant, who is the petitioner before us, applied for restitution. But the application was dismissed on the ground that it was out of time under the provisions of section 4 (5) of the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1955. The petition under consideration is to revise that order.

When the petition came before one of us, it was felt that there was no jurisdiction vested in the Revenue Divisional Officer to order restoration, and that since section 4 (5) would have no application to a case of deprivation of possession of a tenant, in execution of an order under section 3 (4), no question of limitation could for that reason arise. But Raso Moopanar v. Ramamurthy Iyer1, had taken the view that because, as would be obvious from the Act, the Legislature was so particular about protecting the rights of cultivating tenants, it would be reasonable to infer that it did not intend that a cultivating tenant who had been evicted from his holding in pursuance of an order of Court which is subsequently found to be wrong, should be left helpless and without any remedy to get possession of the holding from which he had been so evicted. In the view of one of us this view required reconsideration and that is how it has been placed before a Division Bench.

Unlike Courts of law which would have inherent powers, although there is no specific enabling statutory provision, the position of statutory bodies entrusted with specified powers is entirely different. The powers of such a statutory body are entirely limited and controlled by the statute which confers them, and, it cannot act outside the limits of the statute creating it. On that view, it could have no inherent power. It is another matter if on a construction of a statutory provision an inference therefrom can be made of an ancillary or necessary power to execute the main purpose covered by the statute. But, in our view, that principle will be inapplicable to the construction of section 4 (5) of the Act. That provision reads:

“Any cultivating tenant who after the commencement of this Act has been evicted except under the provisions of sub-section (4) of section 3 shall be entitled to apply to the Revenue Divisional Officer within two months from the date of such eviction or within two months from the date of coming into force of the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection (Amendment) Act, 1956, for the restoration to him of the possession of the lands form which he was evicted and to hold them with all the rights and subject to all the liabilities of a cultivating tenant. The provisions of sub-section (4) shall, so far as may be, apply to such an application.”

It is amply clear that the scope of the power under this provision does not extend to a case of eviction of the tenant under sub-section (4) of section 3. This is an express limitation upon the scope of the power conferred by section 4 (5). We do not think how we can, notwithstanding the express exclusion, impute an intention on the part of the Legislature so as to enable us to infer an inherent power to put the tenant in possession who has been evicted in execution of an order under section 3 (4) of the Act. With respect, therefore, we are not

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