H.R. Krishnan, J.

This appeal is by a person who had already been held by the High Court of Indore to be nothing more than a sub-tenant by operation of the law contained in Indore Government Circular No. 13 of 1908, and on that basis been ordered to be evicted in a suit by the landlord-plaintiff-respondent. The suit was resisted unsuccessfully by the sub-tenant on two main grounds; firstly, he was a transferee without the permission of the appropriate authority, and as such, a sub-tenant by operation of statute; that law not having provided any particular procedure for ejecting him, the procedure actually adopted on the basis of a notice to quit was not sufficient; secondly, though this is an agricultural tenancy the principles contained in section 106, Transfer of Property Act would be applicable on grounds of equity and reasonableness; but actually, the landlord-tenant had noticed this sub-tenant to quit within four days though there was a standing crop. Both the lower Courts having rejected this defence, the subtenant came up in second appeal.

Stated thus, it was a straightforward case; but there are two complications; first, one of a very general nature and the second, particular to this appeal.

When this second appeal was pending, the Madhya Bharat Ryotwari Sub-lessees Protection Act (29 of 1955) was enacted. Under that Act (and the very similar Act, Madhya Bharat Muafi and Inam Tenants and Sub-tenants Protection Act, 32 of 1954) pending legal proceedings of all kinds for the eviction of the Ryotwari sub-lessees from Ryotwari lands (and the tenant, sub-tenants and ordinary tenants from the Inam lands) were to stand stayed subject to certain provisions regarding wilful waste and deposit of rent by the tenant or sub-tenant concerned. Accordingly, this appeal, like a very large number of similar proceedings, was stayed. In this case, the delivery of possession not having already taken place in accordance with the decree of the lower Courts, the sub-tenant-appellant continued in possession. The Madhya Bharat Ryotwari Sub-lessees Protection Act as well as the Muafi and Inam Tenants and Sub-tenants Protection Act, has been repealed by the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code (20 of 1959) which came into force on the 2nd October 1969. Thereupon, all these proceedings were posted for hearing on merits. Now, the plea raised in all these cases is that the sub-tenant concerned is a person who at the commencement of the Code was actually holding, in the Madhya Bharat region, the land as Ryotwari sub-lessee as defined in the Madhya Bharat Ryotwari Sub-lessees Protection Act. (In case of the tenants, sub-tenants and ordinary tenants of Muafi and Inam lands, the same argument is made to the effect that at the commencement of the Code they are actually holding in the Madhya Bharat region some inam land as tenant, sub-tenant or ordinary tenant). Accordingly, it is urged in this case, that the appellant-sub-tenant has already acquired by the operation of section 185(i)(ii)(b) of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, the rights of an occupancy tenant under the Code, and as such is no more liable to eviction at the instance of his erstwhile superior landlord, namely, the Ryotwari tenant. This is a very general argument and has to be examined in this appeal with reference to the sub-tenants of Ryotwari tenancy. (In an appropriate case, will also be examined the similar question with reference to the tenant, sub-tenant or ordinary tenant of any inam land but it does not arise in this case).

One more complication special to this case is that the plaintiff Ryotwari tenant died during the pendency of the proceedings. Upon this, one Bhuwansingh a minor through his best friend, has sought substitution in place of the respondent as being the son by adoption. The appellant has, for the limited purpose of the litigation, agreed to the substitution. Bhuwansingh being a claimant in any event to the estate of the deceased plaintiff-respondent. He, howeve