KATHAPERUMAL PILLAI Vs. MURUGESAM PILLAI AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff, who succeeded in the trial Court but failed in the lower appellate Court, is the appellant. He filed the suit for possession of agricultural lands. He had obtained the sale deed, Exhibit A -1, from the Court in execution of a compromise decree for specific performance obtained by him against the defendants in O.S. No. i33 of 1959 on the file of the Sub -Court, Tiruchirapalli. The defendants in that suit are not parties to the present action. The appellant obtained possession of the properties covered by Exhibit A -1 through the Court in E.P. No. 193 of 1964 on 21st September, 1964 with some standing crops which were said to be two months old, as seen from the delivery receipt, Exhibit A -2. His case was that thereafter at the instance of defendants 3 and 4, defendants 1 and 2 trespassed on the property on 21st October, 1964 and cut and carried p.way the crops. He, therefore, filed the suit for recovery of possession of the properties with past and future mesne profits.

(2.) THE second defendant alone resisted the suit contending that he was a tenant of a portion of the suit property under the original owner under the insufficiently stamped and unregistered lease deed, Exhibit B -1, and that he continued to be in possession and could not be evicted in view of the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants Protection Act and was liable to pay only the rents. The lease deed, Exhibit B -1, which was insufficiently stamped had been validated by payment of the necessary stamp duty and penalty and has been relied upon by the Court below for the collateral purpose of showing the nature of possession of the second defendant.

(3.) THE learned Counsel for the second defendant submits that the owners of the agricultural lands, who were the defendants in the said O.S. No. 133 of 1959, had title to the properties until the execution of the sale deed, Exhibit A -1, in pursuance of the decree for specific performance of the contract and were, therefore, entitled to lease a portion of the properties to the second defendant and he is entitled to the benefits of the Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants' Protection Act, and Section 52 of the Transfer of Property Act will not apply. He relied upon certain decisions in support of his contention.