Shelat, J. - (1.) This appeal by certificate is directed against the judgment of the High Court at Bombay dated 1l/21st December 1962 in Writ Petition 259 of 1962.
(2.) The appellant is the mahant of a public and religious trust called Kabir Nirnay Mandir. The trust is being administered at Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh and the bulk of its properties is situate there, except three pieces of land at Vadjai, a village in Dhulia District. Respondent 1 is the tenant of two out of these three pieces of land situate at Vadjai. The question in this appeal is whether the appellant can apply and obtain an exemption certificate under Sec. 88B of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) .
(3.) The Act was originally passed in 1948 but was drastically amended by Amendment Act, XIII of 1956 which came into force on August l, 1956. The Amendment Act inducted into the Act inter alia Secs. 32 to 32R and Secs. 88A to 88D. Sections 32 to 32R deal with purchase of land by tenants. Sub-section (1) of S. 32 provides that on the first day of April 1957, i. e., the tillers' day, every tenant shall, subject to the other provisions of this section and the provisions of the next succeeding sections, be deemed to have purchased from his landlord the land held by him as a tenant. In certain cases the said date, viz., April 1, 1957 has been postponed but we are not concerned in this appeal with those provisions nor with any such postponed date. Secs. 88A to 88C exclude the operation of sees. 32 to 32R to land specified therein. Section 88B inter alla provides:- "Nothing in the foregoing provision' except Secs. 3, 4B, 8, 9, 9A, 9B, 9C, 10, 10A, 11, 13, and 27 and the provisions of Chapters VI and VIII in so far as the provisions of the said Chapters are applicable to any of the matters referred to in the sections mentioned above, shall apply. ********** (b) to lands which are the property of a trust or an institution for public religious worship." ;