HC sets aside farmer’s eviction from tenancy land after 50 years

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday set aside two orders of the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal from 1975 which divested an 82-year-old agriculturalist of the land he was cultivating in Haveli taluka of Pune district. The land was taken away because the old man, Thaku Jagdale, was unable to cultivate it due to his advancing age, which was not justified, the court observed.

The court was hearing a plea filed by Thaku’s son Vitthal Jagdale. When Vitthal obtained the 7/12 extract of the land in 2008, he realised that his father’s name did not appear in the revenue records. Upon further enquiry, he learnt that proceedings under the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act had been initiated against his father and two orders had been passed on February 21, 1975, and April 29, 1975, divesting him of the land.

Jagdale’s father had bought the land from the state government in 1972 by paying ₹5 lakh as per provisions of the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, which recognised tiller’s rights to land they cultivated. But when he was unable to cultivate the land for the next three years owing to his advancing age, the Kadams, who owned the land earlier, approached the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal.

The Kadams contended that the land should be taken away from Thaku as per section section 32R of the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, which was applicable when tenants stopped personally cultivating land they had bought. The tribunal then divested Thaku of ownership of the land and gave it to the Kadams for ₹4,000.

The high court observed that for four years before 1975, Thaku was unable to cultivate the land due to his old age and weak health even though he continued to retain actual possession.

“To take away such ownership, the failure to cultivate the land must be of a serious kind. It must not be a small lapse, or something caused by genuine difficulties like illness, old age, or poverty,” the court said.

The court further said that though section 32R of the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act allows the state to hold tenants liable and take back land that remains fallow, it is not a standalone penal section and works along with section 32P, which pertains to redistribution of the land.

“Whenever section 32R is used, the law requires a proper and detailed inquiry. The tenant must be given a fair chance to explain why he could not cultivate the land, and the decision must be made not by focusing only on small technical faults, but by looking at the matter from the larger perspective of social justice and fairness in agriculture,” the court said, setting aside the two eviction orders and reverting ownership of the land to the Jagdales.