ORDER
1. This is a revision petition filed by a tenant to challenge the order dated 28-2-1990 passed by the Additional District Land Reforms Appellate Authority, Puttur (D.K.) in Appeal No. L.R.A.A. 79 of 1987, whereby the Appellate Authority while allowing the appeal of the respondent 1-landlord had set aside the order dated 29-5-1987 in case Nos. LRY 2534:74-75 and 193:75-76 passed by the respondent 3-Land Tribunal, Sullia.
2. I heard the learned Counsel for the revision petitioner Sri A. Keshava Bhat, the learned Counsel appearing for the contesting respondent 1-Sri P. Ganapathy Bhat. The respondent 2-landlord (the brother of the respondent 1) having been served with notice had remained absent before this Court. The respondent 3-Land Tribunal, Sullia and the respondent 4-State are represented by the learned Government Pleader Sri S.S. Guttal. I have also perused the case records, both of the Appellate Authority as well as of the respondent 3-Land Tribunal.
3. The learned Counsel appearing for the revision petitioner had taken me through the facts of the case; as adverted to by him, the same are as hereunder:
That the revision petitioner, appears to be an illiterate person had filed Form 7 at the first instance on 28-12-1974 claiming occupancy rightas against the respondent 1 herein in respect of 4 acres of land and in the said Form 7 he had stated therein that he was a tenant for about 20 years since the year 1955 and that he was not knowing the Sy. Nos. and the Patta Nos. despite the enquiries he made in the Panchayat Office. The said Form 7 was registered as case No. LRY 2534:74-75. That subsequently on 23-10-1975, he had filed yet another Form 7 claiming occupancy right in respect of the very same extent of land, but he had set out the claim as if in respect of Sy. No. 280-4 in Patta No. 183. Interestingly enough in the place where he had to show the name of the landlord, he had shown the name of himself and the said Form 7 was registered as LRY. 193:75-76 by the respondent 3-Land Tribunal. That the Land Tribunal had considered both the above two applications of the revision petitioner in the above two tenancy proceedings and held an enquiry and it had passed a considered order by granting the occupancy right to the revision petitioner. The said order came to be challenged by the respondent 1 before this Court in Writ Petition No. 24064 of 1981, wherein the respondent 1 had complained that the Land Tribunal did not hold the enquiry in strict compliance of Rule 17 of the Land Reforms Rules. The said writ petition came to be allowed on 29-11-1983 and this Court while allowing the said writ petition directed the Land Tribunal to hold a common enquiry in respect of both the claims of the revision petitioner by the Land Tribunal. This Court further observed therein that all the contentions of the parties were left open.
4. That thereafter, the Land Tribunal held a second round of tenancy proceedings. In the said proceedings, the petitioner had examined himself and yet another witness by name Mahabaleshwar Jois, the elder brother of the respondent 1. In the meantime, the Land Tribunal had also deputed its Surveyor and the Surveyor with due notice to the revision petitioner on the one side and the contesting respondent 1 on the other held a survey. The said Surveyor had also drawn a detailed sketch dated 10-4-1987 to which both the petitioner as well as the respondent 1 had set their respective hands. In the said survey sketch, the petitioner had been shown to have possession of the following lands under the respondent 1. The Sy. Nos. have been shown as hereunder:
280/1a-Nanja (I): 77 cents
280/6-Nanja (II) : 1 acre 39 cents
279/3-Punja : 68 cents and
385/2b-Punja : 11 cents,
all in Boodihal village.
5. The revision petitioner in the said evidence had asserted that he was a tenant in respect of the lands more fully set out in the sketch drawn by the surveyor in the month of 1987. He had also spoken with reference to the detailed sketch drawn by the surveyor. He had also produced the extract of the levy register showing that he was giving the levy in respect of the above 4 items of the land. The witness Mahabaleshwar Jois the brother of the respondent 1, whom the revision petitioner had examined had also supported the ease of the revisionpetitioner; strangely, the respondent 1 had not challenged the said evidence of the revision petitioner before the Land Tribunal. However, in his oral evidence he had asserted that the revision petitioner was only a carpenter by profession and was also going for coolie and that he was not at all a tenant in respect of the subject lands.
6. That the Land Tribunal on appreciation of the said material evidence on record had passed the order dated 29-5-1987 in the said two case Nos. and in so doing, the Land Tribunal had once again granted the occupancy right to the revision petitioner for the second time in respect of the above extents of lands.
7. That having been aggrieved thereto, the respondent 1-landlord had filed an appeal in No. L.R.A.A. 79 of 1987 before the Additional Land Reforms Appellate Authority, Puttur, (D.K.), (henceforth in brief referred to as Appellate Authority) to challenge the above order of the Land Tribunal granting occupancy right. The revision petitioner had also filed I.A. Nos. 6 and 7, one for amendment of the Form 7 and another for condonation of delay in filing the amendment application. In so filing, the revision petitioner had prayed that in the circumstances stated in the two Forms 7 filed by him, one on 28-12-1974 and another on 23-10-1975, he be permitted to set out the claim in the Form 7 in respect of the 4 Sy. Nos. as stated in para (4) above. That the Appellate Authority had passed orders in I.A. Nos. 6 and 7 on 31-1-1990 rejecting both the said applications and immediately thereafter on 28-2-1990, the Appellate Authority had also passed the impugned order, whereby the Appellate Authority while allowing the appeal of the respondent 1 set aside the order of the Land Tribunal granting occupancy right to the revision petitioner mainly on the ground that the Forms 7 filed by the revision petitioner were not amended well in time and with that there was no claim in law as against the above 4 Sy. Nos. in respect of which the Land Tribunal had granted occupancy right. When the orders on the amendment application was passed on 31-1-1990, the final order herein impugned was passed on 28-2-1990 and in the process, the petitioner had no occasion to challenge the order on the amendment applications by way of revision before this Court and it is for that reason, he had made out one of the main grounds in the appeal as to rejection of the amendment application.
8. The learned Counsel for the revision petitioner while taking me through the history of the long drawn litigation between the parties in the matter of grant of occupancy right to the petitioner, argued that there was no justification on the part of the Appellate Authority to reject the amendment application, the petitioner had filed for amendment of the Form 7, for according to him there was no occasion to resort to the same before the Land Tribunal, for the Land Tribunal had granted occupancy right on two occasions based on the evidence on record and the survey report and it was therefore the petitioner was obliged to file the amendment application only before the Appellate Authority, no matter that there was considerably long delay in so doing before the Appellate Authority. He also argued that the occasion to amend the Form 7had arisen only before the Appellate Authority, since the Land Tribunal had granted occupancy right earlier on two occasions and hence it could not be said that the amendment application was filed by the revision petitioner belatedly. In this context, he had also drawn my attention to the social circumstances in which the revision petitioner was placed, being an illiterate carpenter working on coolie basis besides pursuing the avocation in agriculture cultivating the subject lands. Sri Bhat also argued in this regard that the Appellate Authority had totally failed to appreciate that the revision petitioner was ill-educated and despite his frantic effort to find out the Sy. Nos. of the subject lands he could not successfully reach the details and it is because of that predicament the revision petitioner was obliged to file yet another Form 7. Sri Bhat had also pointed out in this regard that the said circumstances go to show that the revision petitioner was moving heaven and earth to get all the particularities of the subject lands. Sri Bhat had also invited my attention to sub-section (3) of Section 48-A of the Land Reforms Act came to be amended by Act 1 of 1979, wherein it had been provided for amendment of the Form 7, that the Tribunal may for valid and sufficient reasons permit the tenant to amend the Form 7. While summing up his argument in this regard, Sri Bhat argued that there could be no better, valid and sufficient reasons than the reasons in the case on hand for the Appellate Authority to permit the revision petitioner to amend the application. Therefore he submitted that the impugned order passed by the Appellate Authority rejecting the claim of the revision petitioner for grant of occupancy right by reversing the order of the Land Tribunal mainly on the ground that without the Form 7 being amended, there was no claim in law, is liable to be set aside. He further prayed that the order of the Land Tribunal granting occupancy right be restored keeping in view that the Land Reforms Act is a social piece of legislation mainly intended to confer occupancy right to the tiller of the soil and that by rejecting the amendment of Form 7, the Appellate Authority had caused irreparable loss and injury to the revision petitioner.
9. Sri Bhat had also cited before me a decision of this Court in Seethadeui v Narayana Kamath and Others , in support of his argument. In the said decision, the Division Bench of this Court held as hereunder:
'In view of sub-section (3) of Section 48-A, if any mistake has been committed in the application filed within time, the application for amendment can be made by the party concerned before the Tribunal, and the Tribunal has the jurisdiction to allow the amendment application if it is satisfied that in not allowing the amendment, it would result in miscarriage of justice.
No person can make an application in Form 7 or an application in the nature of an amendment after the expiry of the period fixed under Section 48-(1) of the Act seeking occupancy right in respect of new item of land not included in the application filed within time'.
10. As against the above argument advanced, the learned Counsel for the contesting respondent 1-Sri P. Ganapathy Bhat while supporting the impugned order passed by the Appellate Authority argued that the amendment application resorted to by the revision petitioner before the Appellate Authority was highly belated inasmuch as the same was filed before the Appellate Authority almost after 14 years after filing the Forms 7 on two occasions before the Land Tribunal, one in the year 1974 and another in the year 1975. He further argued that the Land Tribunal had granted the occupancy right to the revision petitioner on two occasions without there being any amendment of the Form 7 to claim the occupancy right in respect of the above 4 Sy. Nos. and that the Land Tribunal was actuated for grant of occupancy right on both occasions, for the reason that the surveyor had drawn a sketch showing the occupation of the said extents of land by the revision petitioner. Incidentally, he had also pointed out that in filing the Writ Petition No. 24064 of 1981 (L.R.) by the respondent 1 as against the revision petitioner herein and others, at para No. (3) therein, it had been averred that the revision petitioner in filing the two Forms 7 had not claimed any item of lands in respect of the above 4 items of the land and that the petitioner had received a notice in the year 1977 from the Land Tribunal for an enquiry and in the notice, the land claimed was mentioned therein as Sy. No. 280/4 and therefore according to him, the revision petitioner would have amended his claim to claim the above 4 Sy. Nos. at least then before the Land Tribunal and that the revision petitioner having not done that even at that belated stage, it was late in the day to resort to amendment before the Appellate Authority and therefore he argued that there was every justification on the part of the Appellate Authority to reject the said amendment application and further to pass the impugned order holding that there was no claim in law for the Land Tribunal to grant occupancy right in respect of the 4 items of the land as set out above. Therefore, he prayed that the instant revision be rejected.
11. If we peruse the impugned order under challenge, one thing is clear that the Appellate Authority had rejected the appeal of the revision petitioner mainly on the ground that I.A. No. 6 for amendment of the Form 7 and I.A. No. 7 to condone the delay in filing the said I.A. No. 6 came to be rejected by the Appellate Authority by a considered order on 31-1-1990. In the said circumstances, it appears to me that it is in the fitness of things that this Court addresses to the point as to whether there was justification on the part of the Appellate Authority in rejecting the amendment application and the condonation application, I.A. Nos. 6 and 7 respectively. At the cost of repetition, I have to point out here that the orders on I.A. Nos. 6 and 7 rejecting the said two applications came to be passed on 31-1-1990, whereas the final order herein impugned came to be passed on 28-2-1990 by the Appellate Authority and in the said circumstances, one can see that there was no time at the disposal of the revision petitioner to challenge the orders on I.A. Nos. 6 and 7 before this Court and that it is for that reason the revision petitioner wasobliged to urge the ground in the instant revision petition that the rejection of the amendment application was not just and proper.
12. It is argued by the learned Counsel for the revision petitioner Sri Keshava Bhat that the revision petitioner filed his Form 7 at the first instance on 28-12-1974 setting out in Column 5 therein that the survey number and the patta number since could not be collected by him from the Panchayat Office, the same was not set out therein and nevertheless in Column 6 therein he had clearly stated that the claim was in respect of 4 acres of land and in the remarks column therein he had stated that his tenancy had commenced in the year 1955 and it is for that reason, yet again the petitioner was obliged to file one more Form 7 on 23-10-1975 wherein he had set out the Sy. No. as 280/4 and Patta No. 183, cultivating in all 4 acres 11 cents and that the cultivation by him was for about 21 years. Continuing his argument, Sri Bhat had also submitted that the petitioner was an illiterate person and all that he knew was only to affix his signature in Kannada and further that since the Land Tribunal had granted occupancy right on both occasions based on the evidence on record, more particularly based on the survey report, there was no occasion for the revision petitioner to file any amendment application to amend the Form 7 and therefore according to him, such a necessity was found on the advice tendered to him by his Advocate when the appeal of the contesting respondent landlord was pending before the Appellate Authority and it is therefore the revision petitioner had filed I.A. No. 6 for amendment of Form 7 and I.A. No. 7 to condone the delay in filing I.A. No. 6. Sri Bhat also argued that it was erroneous on the part of the Appellate Authority to reject the said two applications on the ground that the same were highly belated, for according to him inspite of best of his efforts he could not find out the survey numbers in the initial stages and that there arose no necessity before the Land Tribunal to do the same as the Land Tribunal had granted the occupancy right to him on both the occasions; continuing his submissions, Sri Bhat also argued that the Appellate Authority had totally failed to appreciate the social circumstances and the level of understanding of the revision petitioner and that he had to file the amendment applications I.A. Nos. 6 and 7 only when he was so advised to do when the appeal of the respondent-landlord was pending before the Appellate Authority and therefore according to him there was no justification on the part of the Appellate Authority to reject summarily the same for delay and laches.
13. While taking me through sub-section (3) of Section 48-A of the Land Reforms Act, Sri Bhat had pointed out that the amendment of Form 7 was permissible in law if valid and sufficient reasons were shown thereto. It is also his submission that in the facts and circumstances of the case, it was just and proper for the Appellate Authority to allow the amendment application filed by the revision petitioner. I have carefully considered the said part of the argument advanced by the learned Counsel for the revision petitioner and in my considered view, the above said circumstances would have been sufficient for the Appellate Authority to allow the amendment application of the revision petitioner and it is therefore in my further considered view, the AppellateAuthority had erred in rejecting the prayer of the revision petitioner to amend his Form 7 totally undermining the object of the Land Reforms Act that the same was passed by the legislature to abolish absentee landlordism and further to confer occupancy right to the tiller of the soil and that by amending the sub-section (3) of Section 48-A of the Land Reforms Act by amendment Act I of 1979, the Legislature had provided for therein that for valid and sufficient reasons shown the Form 7 filed by the tenant be permitted to be amended.
14. Hence, it is clear that the impugned order of the Appellate Authority came to be passed setting aside the order of the Land Tribunal granting occupancy right to the revision petitioner mainly on the ground that there was no amendment of Form 7 and hence there was no claim in law in respect of the 4 items of land, more fully described in para (4) supra, since the amendment application, I.A. No, 6 and the other application I.A. No. 7 to condone the delay in filing I.A.No. 6, also came to be rejected. I for one don't find justification thereto for the reasons, firstly that right at the stage of filing the Form 7 the revision petitioner had contended that despite his best efforts he could not get the particulars of the land he cultivated (he had so stated in Form 7 filed on 28-12-1974), secondly that he filed second Form 7 on 23-10-1975 when he got some more particulars of the land cultivated, thirdly that on two occasions the Land Tribunal had granted occupancy right based on the survey report and the sketch, also spoken thereto in the evidence of the revision petitioner before the Land Tribunal and lastly that he being an illiterate person had filed amendment application before the Appellate Authority when he was so advised to file. In the said circumstances it appears to me that the revision petitioner had made out valid and sufficient grounds to amend his claim under sub-section (3) of Section 48-A of the Act and that being so, the Appellate Authority would not have rejected the said I.A. No. 6 and I.A. No. 7 for amendment of the claim filed by the revision petitioner before it on the ground of delay.
15. In my considered view, by keeping in mind the laudable object of the Land Reforms Act to do distributive justice by granting land to the tiller of the soil and further the social circumstances in which the village rustic like the revision petitioner was placed in the society he was living while he filed Form 7,the Appellate Authority would have been little more liberal and further practical in its approach and would not have rejected the applications for amendment of his claim in Form 7. Anyway, to remit the matter to the Appellate Authority by this Court by exercising the revisional power under Section 121-A, the Appellate Authority is no more in existence. In the circumstances of the case, to do substantial justice, it appears to me that the matter has to be remitted by this Court to the Land Tribunal with a direction to consider the claim of the revision petitioner for grant of occupancy right by entertaining a fresh application to amend the Forms 7 filed by him and that liberty thereto has to be given to the revision petitioner to amend his Form 7 before the Land Tribunal. Such a recourse is just and proper, for it appears to me that, but for the amendment not made in Form 7 by the revision petitioner, the Appellate Authority would have as well confirmed the order of theLand Tribunal granting occupancy right. In the said view of the matter, I pass the following order:
(i) The matter is remanded to the Land Tribunal with a direction to pass fresh order; (ii) the impugned order of the Appellate Authority herein impugned is set aside; (iii) the order dated 29-5-1987 passed by the respondent 1-Land Tribunal, Sullia, in case No. LRY. 2534:74-75; 193:75-76 in granting occupancy right to the revision petitioner in respect of 4 items of the land, more fully set out therein is also set aside so that it passes a fresh order as herein directed; (iv) liberty is given to the revision petitioner to amend his Form 7 before the Land Tribunal and (v) the Land Tribunal is directed to pass fresh order after considering the amendment application by the revision petitioner to amend the Form 7 with the liberty given to him thereto, in the light of the material evidence available on its record. Let the Land Tribunal do that limited part of the exercise after issuing notices to all the parties concerned.
16. The Land Tribunal is further directed to dispose of the claim of the revision petitioner within a period of 3 months from the date of commencement of the proceedings as herein directed.
17. The revision petition therefore succeeds and accordingly allowed but with the above terms.
18. In view of certain direction to the Land Tribunal as in para 16, the Registry is directed to forward the records of the Tribunal to the respondent 3-Land Tribunal, Sullia.