Once their appeal rejection attained finality, landowners lacked locus to challenge the tenant’s successful revision.

Mavjibhai Saradhiya applied under Section 70(b) of the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, claiming tenancy over two acres of Survey No. 125 at Moti Saran.

The Mamlatdar and ALT declared him a tenant over that area on 20 August 1988, relying in part on evidence from the landowners’ power-of-attorney holder, who stated that Mavjibhai had cultivated part of the land since 1942 and that the landowners had received a share of its agricultural profits.

The landowners’ appeal was dismissed as time-barred; their challenge to that dismissal was not pursued.

Mavjibhai’s heirs separately appealed, but the Deputy Collector set aside the Mamlatdar’s order, citing insufficient evidence of tenancy over the whole land and a possible breach of the Fragmentation Act.

On the heirs’ revision, the Gujarat Revenue Tribunal restored the Mamlatdar’s order, relying on Section 32D(1) of the Tenancy Act.

The landowners then challenged the Tribunal’s decision before the High Court.

1. Whether the landowners, whose appeal against the Mamlatdar’s order had been dismissed as time-barred and whose challenge to that dismissal had attained finality, could challenge the Tribunal’s order in the revision brought by Mavjibhai’s heirs.

2. Whether the Fragmentation Act barred the recognition of the tenancy or the tenant’s deemed purchase of the land.

Section 32D(1) of the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 provides that where the land held on tenancy is a fragment, the tenant is deemed to have purchased it under Section 32, notwithstanding anything in the Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947.

The Court also applied the principle that a party whose challenge to an order has been rejected and whose resulting position has attained finality cannot use another party’s revision proceedings to reopen that matter; the judgment cited no authority for this proposition.

The landowners’ own appeal against the Mamlatdar’s order had been dismissed for delay, and they had not challenged that dismissal. The tenancy order had therefore attained finality as against them, leaving them without standing to challenge the Tribunal’s decision in the heirs’ revision.

On the fragmentation question, the Deputy Collector’s concern that recognition of the tenancy would breach the Fragmentation Act could not prevail over Section 32D(1), which expressly permits deemed purchase where the tenanted land is a fragment. The High Court agreed with the Tribunal’s application of that provision.

The petition was dismissed; any interim relief was vacated and any rule or notice discharged.