Revisional finality and tenant purchase rights bar reopening and defeat post-cutoff ejectment proceedings

A Collector exercising revisional power under section 76A cannot reopen a matter after having already declined interference, because that determination is final absent a statutory review power. The amendment to section 32 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 is described as protecting tenants' statutory purchase rights and saving only ejectment applications filed on or before 31 March 1957; later applications are outside the saving clause and become incompetent once the amendment operates. An ejectment order based on a post-31 March 1957 application is therefore unsustainable, while any later revisional order made without jurisdiction is liable to be quashed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Collector, having earlier declined to interfere under section 76A, could later reopen the matter and pass a fresh order after calling for the record; (ii) whether the amended section 32 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 operated retrospectively so as to invalidate ejectment proceedings filed after 31 March 1957 but pending when the amending Act came into force; (iii) whether an order of ejectment made on such a post-31 March 1957 application was sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the Collector, having earlier declined to interfere under section 76A, could later reopen the matter and pass a fresh order after calling for the record.

Analysis: The revisional power under section 76A is exercised on the legality or propriety of the order under challenge. Once the Collector had considered the matter and determined that there was no ground for interference, that determination was final in the absence of any statutory power of review. A later order reopening and reversing that concluded decision was therefore beyond jurisdiction. The fact that the record had been called for did not authorise repeated reconsideration after the Collector had already decided not to interfere.

Conclusion: The Collector's subsequent order reopening the revision was without jurisdiction.

Issue (ii): Whether the amended section 32 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 operated retrospectively so as to invalidate ejectment proceedings filed after 31 March 1957 but pending when the amending Act came into force.

Analysis: The amendment deemed qualifying tenants to have purchased the land from the tillers' day, but preserved only those ejectment applications that had been filed on or before 31 March 1957. Applications filed after that date were outside the saving language and could not defeat the tenant's statutory purchase right. The amendment was intended to give full effect to the transfer of ownership to tenants, subject only to pending pre-31 March 1957 applications, and it necessarily affected proceedings still pending on the date of commencement.

Conclusion: The amended section 32 did operate to bar post-31 March 1957 ejectment applications, though the tenant's right depended on the exact statutory conditions and the pendency of earlier proceedings.

Issue (iii): Whether an order of ejectment made on such a post-31 March 1957 application was sustainable.

Analysis: Because the application for ejectment based on section 14 was filed after 31 March 1957, it became incompetent once the amended section 32 took effect. An order passed on an incompetent application could not stand. However, since the Collector had already finally declined to interfere and could not review that decision, the later order setting aside the original ejectment order was invalid for want of jurisdiction, leaving the original ejectment order operative.

Conclusion: The ejectment order could not be sustained on the later revisional reopening, and the Collector's later order was liable to be quashed.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed, and the operative result was that the High Court's interference was not disturbed, leaving the parties bound by the final disposition recorded in the judgment.

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