Ceiling land liability follows the heirs or legatees after death, not a deemed continuation of the deceased holder.
Where a landholder dies after the appointed day but before declaration of surplus land, ceiling liability must be assessed with reference to the heirs or legatees in whom the land devolves, not by treating the deceased as continuing to hold the property. The Act's scheme ties enquiry and declaration to a living person filing returns, and its deeming provision for excess land cannot be extended beyond its statutory purpose. In the absence of machinery to substitute legal representatives, proceedings must be taken on the basis of the individual returns of the heirs or legatees. The impugned orders were set aside and the matter remitted for fresh determination accordingly.
Issues: Whether, on the death of a landholder after the appointed day but before declaration of surplus land, the ceiling area and surplus land are to be determined with reference to the deceased holder or to the heirs or legatees in whom the property devolves.
Analysis: The scheme of the Act shows that the ceiling is determined in relation to a living "person" who files the return, faces enquiry, and is subjected to declaration under Section 21. The restrictions in Chapter III are directed against inter vivos transfers and partitions, while the Act contains no provision extending the deceased holder's liability to heirs or legatees where the holder dies before declaration. The deeming provision treating excess land as surplus is limited to its statutory purpose and cannot be expanded to create a fiction that the deceased continues to hold the land for purposes of declaration after death. In the absence of machinery for substituting legal representatives to proceed on the deceased holder's return, the heirs or legatees must file their own individual returns for the land held by them.
Conclusion: The surplus land could not be determined on the footing that the deceased holder remained alive until declaration; the proceedings had to proceed against the heirs or legatees on their individual holdings, and not on a joint or inherited continuation of the deceased holder's return.
Final Conclusion: The impugned orders were set aside and the matters were remitted for fresh determination in accordance with law on the basis of the individual returns of the heirs or legatees.
Ratio Decidendi: A statutory fiction extending excess land to surplus cannot be enlarged beyond its purpose, and where the statute contains no machinery to continue proceedings against a deceased holder, ceiling liability must be determined against the persons who actually hold the land at the time of declaration.
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