ORDER
1. These two writ petitions are at the instance of the tenants who held different lands of which the common respondent, a former Army Officer was the land owner. It is common ground that the land owner (R-4) who was in the Army till April 1972 had thereafter retired from the army. During the interregnum and even thereafter the lands in question had stood leased to the petitioners herein who with the advent of the Land Reforms Act, are stated to have made applications to the appropriate land Tribunals for grant of occupancy rights in regard to which a series of confrontation is on between both sides.
2. Herein we are concerned with a spate of applications made by Col. Deshpande, both when he was in service and after he retired from service seeking resumption of lands in question from his tenants under S. 15 of the Land Reforms Act, 1962. The first of these applications is stated to have been made in the year 1956 and the last of them in the year 1966. Deshpande, who is also edited with (sic) denies having made a sue an application in the year 1976 and submits that in 1976 he had merely reminded the authorities of the applications made by him on earlier occasions seeking resumption of lands and that his applications were still pending disposal.
3. Be that as it was the applications of Col. Deshpande, were ultimately disposed of by the Tahsildar, Land Reforms, Chikodi under an order dt. 30-10-1977 by allowing the same and directing resumption of the lands held by the petitioners herein.
Aggrieved by that order, the petitioners preferred unsuccessfully an appeal to the Assistant Commissioner, Chikodi, in Appeal No. K.L.R. A.P. 11 of 1977. The learned Assistant Commissioner, dismissed that appeal by an order made on 29-8-1982 and thereby affirmed the Tahsildar’s order referred to earlier. The two orders are produced at Anners. B and C. In these writ petitions the prayer is to quash both the said orders on the short ground that the applications of Deshpande now granted by the Tahsildar were legally untenable having been made to an authority, who was not competent to deal with them and having been made at a stage or point of time when the land owner could not have made those applications at all.
4. Suffice it for my purpose to focus attention on the second point, which turns on the tenability of the applications not being made as stipulated by the provisions of S. 15 of the Land Reforms Act, 1961 (‘Act’ for short). It would at this stage be appropriate to set-out S. 15 of the Act, which reads as under:
“15. Resumption of land by soldier or seaman. – (1) A soldier or a seaman who has created or continued a lease in accordance with the provisions of S. 5 shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be entitled to resume land to the extent of the ceiling whether his tenant is a protected tenant or not.
(2) The soldier or the seaman shall, if he bona fide requires the land to cultivate personally, issue a notice to the tenant requiring him to deliver possession of the land within the period specified in the notice, which shall not be less than the prescribed period.
(3) The notice referred to in sub-sec. (2) shall be given, –
(i) in the case of a soldier in service in the Armed Forces of the Union (at any time not later than one year) from the date on which he is released from the Armed Forces or is sent to the reserve;
(ii) in the case of the father, mother, spouse, child or grand child of a soldier, within one year from the date of the death of such soldier; and
(iii) in the case of a seaman, within one year from the date on which he ceases to be a seaman.
(4) If the tenant fails to deliver possession of the land within the period specified in the notice, the soldier or the seaman may make an application to the Tahsildar within whose jurisdiction the greater part of the land is situated, furnishing the prescribed particulars for eviction of the tenant and delivery of possess n of the land.
(5) On receipt of such application, the Tahsildar shall issue a notice to the tenant calling upon him to deliver possession of the land to the soldier or seaman within such time as may be specified in the notice and if the tenant fails to comply, the Tahsildar may summarily evict the tenant and deliver possession of the land to the soldier or the seaman.
(6) Where the Tahsildar on application by the tenant or otherwise and after such enquiry as may be prescribed is satisfied that a notice as required by sub-s. (2) is not issued, he shall by notification declare that with effect from such date as may be specified in the notification the land leased shall stand transferred to and vest in the State Govt. from all encumbrances. The Tahsildar may take possession of the land in the prescribed manner and the tenant shall be entitled to be regd. as an occupant thereof.”
This section which is very plain, unambiguous and quite clear, fortunately does not suffer from any imprecisener. Broadly speaking it contemplates a statement to be made by a landlord who was a serving member of the Armed forces as enjoined under sub-sec. (1) of S. 14 of the Act and further stipulates that such a statement should be filed with in one year from the date on which such landlord ceases to be a serving member of any suck armed forces.
5. This section as already mentioned presents little difficulty in construing of the same comprising as it does of a fiat to the land owner who is a member of an armed force that he should file a statement under S. 14, expressing his desire to resume lands in the possession of his tenants and that he should make that statement within one year from the date on which he (landlord) ceased to be a member of the armed forces. In other words an obligation is laid on the landowner of the kind referred to supra to make a statement seeking resumption of the land from his tenants during the one-year period intervening the actual date of retirement and the making of the statement. Therefore the imprimatur of the statute is that the intention to resume lands in the possession of a tenant cannot be expressed until after the landowner ceases to be a member of the armed forces and that it should be expressed within one year from the date of such cesser. In other words such intention to resume lands from his tenant by a soldier cannot be expressed either before retirement and after the expiry of one year following retirement of the landowner from the army.
6. It is common ground that Col. Deshpande, the 4th respondent retired from the Army in April, 1972. Therefore, applications made by him either in the year 1956 or 1966 or even later could not be treated as made within the period stipulated by the statute. If that is the position on facts, there is, hence little gainsay in denying the aforesaid applications of Deshpande were premature and could not therefore have deserved any consideration much less meet with the success that they appear to have met with at the hands of the Tahsildar and endorsed later by the Assistant Commissioner on appeal.
7. The Land Reforms Act has been amended in 1974 and in the process has wrought some changes in S. 15, sub-cls. (1) to (3) of Cl.1 (vide S. 15 of the Act, set out at Para 4 ante).
8. It may be noticed from the amended provisions of S. 15, referred to earlier, even they stipulate the initiation of proceedings for resumption of land from a tenant only after the retirement of the Army Officer, but within one year thereof. The accent thus has clearly always been on the time of making an application which is after retirement from the Army, but within one year thereof. It means that it can neither be done sooner nor later.
9. Upon this conclusion it becomes clear, the applications made by Deshpande for resumption were clearly premature and had therefore to be rejected. But on the contrary they have been granted and hence cannot be sustained in law.
10. In the result both the writ petitions are allowed Annes. ‘B’ and ‘C’ therein in so far as they advert to and relate to the petitioners shall stand quashed. No costs.
11. The learned counsel for the petitioner in W.P. No. 4016 of 1987 submitted that the landowner had taken possession of land from the petitioner following the order made by the Tahsildar at Annexure-B. In view of the qushing of the aforesaid order of the Tahsildar, the petitioner in W. P. 4016 of 1987 will be entitled to be resorted to possession.
12. Petition allowed.