Sub-tenants cannot assume the status of cultivating tenants if the original tenants violated lease conditions by transferring rights without landlord's consent, as per tenant protection laws.

JUDGMENT :

The innocent landlord, caught between the tenant/lessee on the lease and the sub-tenant, who is a sub-lessee of the tenant under a registered sub-lease, fighting the case through the various courts for more than three decades, is now before this Court through the present revision petitions, now being prosecuted by their legal representatives, has assailed the order passed by the Revenue Court in and by which the petitions filed for eviction of the cultivating tenant and for realising the dues payable towards the lease amounts have been dismissed on the ground that the amounts due towards the lease amounts have been paid and, therefore, there arises no question for eviction of the cultivating tenant.

2. As both the civil revision petitions and the second appeal are strikingly connected through the very same set of facts and the disposal of the revisions would have a direct impact on the second appeal and vice versa, the civil revision petitions and the second appeals are taken up together for disposal.

3. For the sake of convenience, the revision petitioners and their predecessors-in-title would be referred to as ‘landlord’, the predecessors-in- interest of the tenant/lessee would be referred to as ‘tenant’ and the predecessors-in-interest of the sub-tenant/sub-lessee would be referred to as ‘sub-tenant’.

4. While the revision petitions have been filed by the landlord assailing the order passed by the authority denying the prayer of eviction sought for by the landlord ever since default occurred in payment of lease rent, the sub-tenant has filed the second appeals, which arose out of the suit in O.S. Nos.172 & 173/2001 filed by the landlord before the District Munsif Court, Madurai, for a permanent injunction restraining the 3^rd defendant, viz., the sub-tenant, his agents and servants from entering the lands of the landlord and also for a permanent injunction restraining the defendants 1, 2, 4 and 5, viz., the tenants, their men, agents and servants from transferring the tenancy of the suhedule lands to the 3^rd defendant or any other person, which suit, on being dismissed, resulted in filing of A.S. No.143 & 144/2010 before the II Addl. Sub Judge, Madurai, which, having been allowed, has prompted the sub-tenant in preferring the second appeals.

5. As the findings that are to be recorded in the civil revision petitions would have to be read in conjunction to determine the fate of the second appeals, therefore, the facts, culminating in the filing of the civil revisions petitions are given in a nutshell hereunder for better appreciation of the case.

6. The eviction petitions through the various petitions before the Revenue Court, which are the subject matter of the present revisions, came to be filed before the Revenue Court by the landlord on the ground that the lands belonging to Ramaswamy Chettiar, the predecessors-in-title of the revision petitioners/landlord, was given by way of an unregistered lease in the year 1971 to one Kumar Nair, the predecessor-in-interest of Paraman Nair and Krishnan Nair, the tenants, who are since deceased, and who are represented by their legal heirs, who are respondents in these revision petitions. By the said lease, it was agreed between the landlord and the tenant that the tenant would be permitted to cultivate the lands upon paying 60 bags of paddy and each bag containing 65 Kgs., for each fasli year irrespective of the yield and also obtain receipt for the payment of such paddy towards the lease amount from the landlord. It was further agreed upon that the tenant would not assign the leasehold rights to others or transfer or made over or sub-lease or under lease the lands to others and that he shall cultivate only paddy crops and no other crops in the said lands without the written consent of the landlord.

7. It is the further case of the landlord that during the life time of the said Kumar Nair, the original lessee, he paid the paddy towards the lease amount regularly and obtained receip