Non-heritable tenancy under special land law excludes succession for trust and religious institution lands.

Tenancy of lands covered by Section 129(b) of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbha Region) Act, 1958 is not heritable. Although Section 54 ordinarily governs devolution of tenancy, Section 129 excludes Chapter III, including Section 54, for lands belonging to educational trusts or public religious worship institutions. Because the Act treats heritability as controlled exclusively by Section 54 and Section 37 also excludes preservation of tenant rights under any other law, the ordinary law of succession cannot be used to create heritable tenancy. The statutory scheme therefore bars devolution of such tenancy on the death of the tenant, and the contrary view was set aside.

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Issues: Whether tenancy of lands covered by Section 129(b) of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbha Region) Act, 1958 is heritable on the death of a tenant by application of Section 54 or the ordinary law of succession.

Analysis: Section 54 governs heritability of tenancy under the Act, but Section 129 expressly excludes Chapter III, under which Section 54 falls, from applying to lands belonging to trusts for educational purposes or institutions for public religious worship. The exclusion of Section 54 is not limited to that provision alone; it also negatives resort to the ordinary law of succession, because the Act treats heritability as a matter regulated exclusively by Section 54. That conclusion is reinforced by Section 37, which excludes preservation of tenant rights under any other law for such lands. Reading the scheme of the Act as a whole, the legislative intention is that tenancies of lands protected by Section 129(b) are not heritable.

Conclusion: The tenancy of lands falling within Section 129(b) is not heritable and cannot devolve on the heirs of the deceased tenant under Section 54 or the ordinary law of succession.

Final Conclusion: The appeals succeeded and the High Court's view that the tenancy was heritable was set aside, confirming that the statutory exemption under Section 129(b) carries with it non-heritable tenancy rights.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a special tenancy statute makes heritability depend exclusively on a specific provision and expressly excludes that provision from applying to a class of lands, neither that provision nor the ordinary law of succession can be invoked to make the tenancy heritable.

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