Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
[Omitted by Tamil Nadu Act VIII of 1965.] 6.Bar of jurisdiction of civil Courts. – No civil Court shall, except to the extent specified in section 3 (3), have jurisdiction in respect of any matter which the Revenue Divisional Officer is empowered by or under this Act to determine and no injunction shall be granted by any Court in respect of any action taken or to be taken in pursuance of any power conferred by or under this Act. 6.A. Transfer of certain suits to the Revenue Divisinal Officer by civil Courts.- If in any suit before any Court for possession of, or injunction in relation to any land, it is proved by affidavit or otherwise that the defendant is a cultivating tenant entitled to the benefits of this Act, the Court shall not proceed with the trial of the suit but shall transfer it to the Revenue Divisional Officer who shall thereupon deal with and dispose of it as though it were an application under this Act and all the provisions of this Act shall apply to such an application and the applicant. ____________________________________________________________________ *See Table of Amendments SECTION 6-A – NOTES The clear import of section 6-A is that in any suit before Civil Court for possession, if the defendant proves not only that he is a cultivating tenant but also he is entitled to the benefits of the Acts, the Civil Court is bound to transfer it to the Revenue Divisional Officer and cannot proceed to try and dispose of it itself. In order to attract the applicability of section 6-A both the conditions must co-exist, namely, the defendant must be a cultivating tenant within the meaning of the Act and he should be entitled to the benefits of the Act. If both these conditions are satisfied no question of any transfer under section 6-A will arise. The Civil Court may have to determine for the purpose of coming to the conclusion whether a suit has to be transferred under section 6-A, certain questions which are within the jurisdiction of Revenue Court under the Act. But that cannot affect the interpretation of the words‘cultivating tenant‘ entitled to the benefits of the Act. Chinnamuthu Goudner v. Perumal Chettiar, AIR 1970 SC 1197 (1970) 2 Mad LJ (SC)114. *6.B. Revision by High Court.- The Revenue Divisional Officer shall be deemed to be a Court subordinate to the High Court for the purposes of section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (Central Act V of 1908), and his orders shall be liable to revision by the High Court under the provisions of the section. SECTION 6-B - NOTES An application was filed for a declaration that the amount deposited by the respondent therein represented the correct amount of rent due from him. There was a controversy whether the respondent was a cultivating tenant at all. The Revenue Court held that the respondent was not a cultivating tenant of the appellant and could not claim the benefit of section 3(3) of the Act and dismissed the application. The respondent filed a petition in revision before the High Court under section 6-B of the Act read with section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The High Court came to the conclusion that the respondent was a cultivating tenant and therefore allowed the revision petition and declared that the amount deposited by the respondent represented the correct amount due from him to the appellant. In the appeal before the Supreme Court the question that was argued was that the finding of the Revenue Court that the respondent was not a cultivating tenant was a finding of fact and that the High Court had no jurisdiction to set it aside on revision. The Supreme Court observed. The Act gives generous protection to cultivating tenants from eviction, and severely restricts the right of landlords to resume possession of their land from their cultivating tenants. In case of dispute between the landlord and the cultivating tenant, the Revenue Divisinal Officer is authorized to entertain and decide applications by the landlord for eviction and resumption and possession and by the cultivating tenant for restoration of possession and to impose penalties on the landlord or the tenant for infraction of section 4-B. ____________________________________________________________________ *See Table of Amendments To attract the jurisdiction of the Revenue Divisional Officer, there must be a dispute between a landlord and cultivating tenant. The existence of the relation of landlord and cultivating tenant between the contending parties is the essential condition for the assumption of jurisdiction by the Revenue Divisional Officer in all proceedings under the Act. The Tribunal can exercise its jurisdiction under the Act only if such relationship exists. If the jurisdiction of the Tribunal is challenged, it must enquire into the existence of the preliminary fact and decide if it has jurisdiction. But its decision on the existence of this preliminary fact is not final; such a decision is subject to review by the High Court in its revisional jurisdiction under section 6-B. The enquiry by the Tribunal is summary; there is no provision for appeal from its decision and the Legislature could not have intended that its decision on the preliminary fact involving a question of title would be final and not subject to the overriding powers of revision by the High Court. Rama Iyer v. Sundaresa Ponnapoondar, AR 1966 SC 1431. The civil revision petition under section 6-B of the Act was filed by the tenant aggrieved by the order of the Revenue Court on the petition filed under section 3 (4) (a) of the Act, for evicting the tenant from the lands for non-payments of lease rents. A preliminary order was passed by the Revenue Court directing the tenant to deposit a certain sum together with costs on or before the date specified. On the adjourned date the tenant was absent and no payment or deposit was also made. In the circumstances, the Revenue Court held that the tenant had rendered himself liable to be evicted from the lands. The Revenue Court directed the tenant to hand over peaceful possession of the lands to the landlord. In the revision petition, the tenant contended that the Revenue Court has failed to exercise its judicial discretion to grant further time for the payment of arrears and the denial of a further chance makes the order in question revisable under section 6-B. Held, that the ex parte order becomes liabale to be set aside by the revisional court and the order becomes revisable on the ground that a reasonable opportunity should be given to the tenant for putting forth his case. The Revenue Court had to take the matter afresh on file and deal with the matter or merits by allowing both sides to adduce evidence both oral and documentary. P.Silamban v. G.Ramamurthy Iyer, AIR 1983 Mad 258. Where the Authorised Officer passed the order passed the order under section 3 (4) (b) of the Act on the failure of the tenant to deposit the rent within the time stipulated by the earlier order, the order of the Authorised Officer is unexceptionable. So long as the order of the Authorized Officer is unexceptionable and is not vitiated by any one of the factors enumerated in section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the High Court will have no jurisdiction to interfere with that order. Kuppanna Chettiar v. Ramachandran. AIR 1981 Mad 35. Under section 3 (4)(b) of the Act, once a cultivating tenant has failed to comply with the direction to deposit the rent into the Revenue Court within the time given by the Revenue Divisional Officer, the Revenue Divisional Officer has no option but to pass an order for eviction. If, for any reason, the tenant was not able to deposit the rent within the given time, certainly he could approach the Revenue Divisional Officer for extension of time, and if he unreasonably refused to extend the time, the tenant may then have a grievance with respect thereto. When the Revenue Divisional Officer has passed an order for eviction, and a revision petition is preferred to the High Court against that order, the High Court can only examine whether the Revenue Divisional Officer has committed any error of jurisdiction so as to attract either clause (a) or clause (b) or clause (c) of section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In these cases, the High Court will have a first find out whether the orders of the Revenue Divisional Officer suffer from any of the vitiating factors mentioned in section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure and if they do not suffer, the High Court cannot interfere with these orders and consequently any interim order that might have been passed by the High Court will not have the effect of destroying or negativing the orders passed by the Revenue Divisional Officer, Kuppanna Chettiar v. Ramachandran, AIR 1981 Mad 35. The fact that during the pendency of the civil revision petition the tenants applied for and obtained orders of interim stay of the execution of the order of eviction on condition of the deposit of the rent and did deposit the rent, will not in any way invalidate the order passed by the Authorized Officer. The question that has to be considered in respect of the default is not with reference to any date subsequent to the order of the Authorized Officer, but with reference to the date fixed by him prior to his passing the order for eviction. The default contemplated by the statutory provision is one occurring and existing on the date of the passing of the order for eviction by the Revenue Divisional Officer himself and not at any stage subsequent to the said order. If the cultivating tenant does not deposit the rent as directed, default has occurred and there is no question of that default being cured or wiped out by the tenant depositing the rent pursuant to any interim order of the High Court during the pendency of the revision petition preferred against the order of eviction and any such deposit made during the pendency of the proceedings in the High Court pursuant to an interim order of the High Court will be one in compliance with the interim order of the High Court and can never be a deposit in compliance with the original order of the Revenue Divisional Officer. Once the failure of the tenant to comply with the direction of the Revenue Divisional Officer is admitted and the consequential order of the Revenue Divisional Officer is unexceptionable, there will be no occasion for the High Court to give an opportunity to the cultivating tenant to comply with the original direction of the Revenue Divisional Officer to deposit the amount, because the original direction no longer stands and that direction has worked itself out in the form of the final order for eviction. Any deposit made by the tenant in terms of the interim order of stay passed by the High Court staying the execution of the order for eviction passed by the Authorized Officer can never be tantamount to compliance with the conditional order passed by the Authorized Officer. Such payment may be taken into account in cases where the tenant approaches the High Court complaining that the Revenue Divisional Officer has unreasonably or illegally declined to extend the time applied for by him for the deposit of the amount, as in those cases, the High Court may, in proper cases, have power to interfere with the order complained against, and extend the time for payment. Kuppanna Chettiar v. Ramachandran, AIR 1981 Mad 35. The High Court is not concerned in revision proceedings with the original default committed by the cultivating tenant in payment of the rent to the landlord. It is because of this original default, the Revenue Divisional Officer directs the tenant to deposit the rent into the court before a particular date and the subject matter of the civil revision proceedings in the High Court therefore will not be the original default, but only the failure of the tenant to comply with the direction of the Revenue Divisional Officer. Once that failure is admitted and the consequential order of the Revenue Divisional Officer is unexceptionable, there will be no occasion for the High Court to give an opportunity to the cultivating tenant to comply with the original direction of the Revenue Divisional Officer to deposit the amount, because the original direction no longer stands and that direction has worked itself out in the form of a final order for eviction, which, on merits, is not challenged. If the matter is understood in this manner, certainly, any deposit made by the tenant in terms of the interim order of stay passed by the High Court staying the execution of the order for eviction passed by the Authorized Officer can never be tantamount to compliance with the conditional order passed by the Authorized Officer. Kuppanna Chettiar v. Ramachandran, (1980) 93 Mad LW 656 : AIR 1981 Mad