LexSAKHARAM @ BAPUSAHEB NARAYAN SANAS AND ANOTHER versus MANIKCHAND MOTICHAND SHAH AND ANOTHER
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t 2 S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS SAKHARAM: @ BAPUSAHEB NARAYAN SANAS AND ANOTHER v. MANIKCHAND MOTICHAND SHAH AND ANOTHER (B. I'. SINHA, C. J., K. SunnA RAo and RAGHUBAR DAYAL, JJ.) 59 Agricultural Lands-Protected Tenants, Rights of-Acquisition under repealed statute-Repealing statute, if affects such rights- Bombay Tenancy Act, r939 (Bom. 29 of r939), as amended by the Bombay Tenancy (Amendment) Act, r946 (Born. 26 of r946), s. 3A(1) - Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, r948 (Bom. LXV II of r948), ss. JI, 85, 89. The appellants had acquired the rights of protected tenants under s. 3A(r) of the Bombay Tenancy Act, 1939, as amended by the Bombay Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1946, and their rights as protected tenants were recorded in the Record of Rights. That Act was repealed by the Bombay Tenancy and Agricul- tural Lands Act, r948, which by s. 31 recognised the rights of a protected tenant acquired under the Act of r939 for its own purposes, by s. 88(r)(c) provided, that nothing in the foregoing provisions of the Act should apply to any area within the limits of the Municipal borough of Poona City and Suburban as also some other boroughs and within a distance of two miles of the limits of such boroughs, and bys. 8g(2) that "nothing in this Act or any repeal effected thereby ........ . (b) shall, save as expressly proviJed in this Act, affect or be deemed to affect (i) a:iy right, title, interest, obligation or liability already acquired, accrued or incurred before the commencement of this Act, or .......................................................................... . (ii) any legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any such right, title, interest, obligation, or liability or anything done or suffered hPfore the commencement of this Act, and any such proceeding shall be continued and disposed of, as if this Act was not passed ......... ". The lands in dispnte were situated within two miles of the limits of the Poona Municipal Borough, i.e. Poona City and Suburban, and the question was whether the rights of the appellants as protected tenants therein were affected by the repeal. Held, that the provisions ()f s. 88 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, arc entirely prospective and apply to such lands as are described in els. (a) to (d) of s. 88(1) from April I9. Ig6r Sakharani @ Hapusaheb Narayan Sanas v. AI anikchand ll! otichand Shah 60 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1962] the date on which the Act. came into operation i.e.· December 28, 1948, and are not of a confiscatory nature so as to take away from the tenant the status of a protected tenant already .accrued to him. Section 89(2)(b) of the Act clearly intends to conserve such rights as were acquired or .accrued before its commencement and that any legal proceeding in respect of such rights was to be. disposed of in terms of the .Act of 1939. Abbot v. The Minist.er for Lands, [1895] A.C. 425, distin- guished. · · CIVIL APPELLATE .JURISDICTION: . Civil Appeal No. 185 ofl956. Appeal by special leave .from the judgment and decree dated November 25, 1954, of the Bombay High Court in Second Appeal No. 1003 of 1952. H. R. Gokhale, J. B. Dadachanji, S. N. Andley, Rameshwar Nath and P. L. Vohra, for the appellants. 0. B. Agarwala and A.G. Ratnaparkhi, for the res- pondent No. I. 1961. April 19. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Sinha c. J. SINHA, C. J.-The only question for determinatfon in this appeal is whether the defendants-appellants are 'protected tenants' within the meaning of the Bombay Tenancy Act (Bombay Act XXIX of 1939) (which hereinafter will be referred to, for the sake of brevity, as the Act of 1939), whose rights a3 such were not affected by the repeal of that Act by the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act (Bombay Act LXVII of 1948) which hereinafter will be referred to as the Act of 1948). The Courts below have decreed the plaintiff's suit for possession of the lands in dis- pute, holding that the defendants were not entitled to the protection claimed by them as 'protected tenants'. This appeal is by special leave granted by this Court on April 4, 1955. . . . The facts of this case are not in dispute. Shortly stated, they are as follows. By virtue of a lease dated October 30, 1939, the defendants obtained a lease of the disputed lands from the plaintiff for a period of 10 years, expiring on October 30, 1949. The lands i
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