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TMI Blog1962 (5) TMI 50X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the erstwhile State of Baroda before it became part of the State of Bombay, by merger. The Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act (Bombay Act LXVII of 1948) - which hereinafter will he referred to as the Act - was extended to Baroda on August 1, 1949. The suits out of which these appeals arise had been instituted by the appellants on the basis that the tenants - respondents had become trespassers on the service of notice in March 1950, with effect from the beginning of the new agricultural section in May 1951. As the defendants did not comply with the terms of the notice and continued in possession of the lands, to which they had been inducted, the landlords instituted suits for possession in the Civil Court. The Trial Courts and the Co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d right could not be affected by the notification aforesaid, issued by the Government under s. 88(1)(d), which had the effect of putting the lands in question out of the operation of the Act. In other words, the learned Judge held the notification had no retrospective effect so as to take away the protection afforded to the tenants by s. 3A, aforesaid. 4. The learned counsel for the appellants con-tended, in the first instance, that the notification, set out above, under s. 88(1)(d) operated with effect from December 28, 1948, when the Act came into force. In this connection, reliance was placed upon the decision of this Court, pronounced by me sitting in a Division Court, in the case of Sakharam v. Manikchand Motichand Shah, in these word ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... mits of such boroughs; or (d) to any area which the State Government may, from time to time, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify as being reserved for urban non-agricultural or industrial development. 6. It will be noticed that cls. (a), (b) and (c) of s. 88(1) apply to things as they were at the date of the enactment, whereas clause (d) only authorised the State Government to specify certain areas as being reserved for urban non-agricultural or industrial development, by notification in the Official Gazette, from time to time. Under cls. (a) to (c) of s. 88(1) it is specifically provided that the Act, from its inception, did not apply to certain areas then identified; whereas clause (d) has reference to the future. Hence, t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ld not take away the rights conferred by the earlier Act of 1939 which was being repealed by the Act of 1948. This is made clear by the provision in s. 89(2) which preserves existing rights under the repealed Act. Sakharam's case [1962]2SCR59 was about the effect of clause (c) on the existing rights under the Act of 1939 and it was in that connection that this Court observed that s. 88 was prospective. But clause (d) is about the future and unless it has the limited retrospective effect indicated earlier it will be rendered completely nugatory. The intention of the legislature obviously was to take away all the benefits arising out of the Act of 1948 (but not those arising from the Act of 1939) as soon as the notification was made under ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the Act, that protection had been taken away by the first notification, which was cancelled by the second. That Court was of the opinion that though the Appellate Court was entitled to take notice of the subsequent events, the suit had to be determined as on the state of facts in existence on the date of the suit, and not as they existed during the pendency of the appeal. In that view of the matter, the learned Appellate Court held that the tenants-defendants could not take advantage of the provisions of the Act, and could not resist the suit for possession. In our opinion, that was a mistaken view of the legal position. When the judgment of the lower Appellate Court was rendered, the position in fact and law was that there was no notificat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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