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63. Therefore, the Joint Collector ought to have framed the question as to whether the lands were agricultural lands or not, in the context of the proceedings that were pending at that time under the ULC Act. It must be remembered that the A.P. (T.A) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 is a State enactment, intended to regulate the relations of landholders and tenants of agricultural land and the alienation of such land (as per the preamble). The ULC Act is a Central enactment and it was subsequent in point of time to the State enactment of the year 1950. The expression "Urban Land" was VRS, J & JUD, J and batch defined in Section 2(o) of the ULC Act, but it excluded from its purview, any land mainly used for the purpose of agriculture. The word "agriculture" used in Section 2(o) was also defined in the Explanation under Section 2(o). The State of A.P. was one of the States in which the provisions of ULC Act came into force at once, by virtue of Section 1(3). Therefore on and from the commencement of the ULC Act, no person in the State of A.P. was entitled to hold any vacant land in excess of the ceiling limit in the territories to which the Act applied. In fact, the prohibition under Section 3 of the ULC Act, 1976 is not with regard to "ownership" of vacant land in excess of the ceiling limit. The prohibition was in respect of "holding" and not ownership.

66. Therefore, on and after the commencement of the ULC Act, 1976, the question whether a land located within the urban agglomeration is an agricultural land or not, is a question that fell exclusively within the jurisdiction of the competent authority under the ULC Act, 1976. This position in law was accepted even by the protected tenant and hence his legal heirs filed appeals after appeals against the final statement made under section 9 of the ULC Act. In essence, a question that fell entirely within the jurisdiction of the competent authority under the ULC Act, 1976, could not have been decided by the Joint Collector in an appeal under Section 90 of the A.P. (T.A) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950. In other words point No.3 framed by the Joint Collector for determination and answered in favour of the protected tenant and the land owner in his order dated 13.04.1998 was wholly without jurisdiction. As a consequence, the order dated 13.04.1998 passed by the Joint Collector falls within one of the two exceptions to the rule of res VRS, J & JUD, J and batch judicata. Hence the present proceedings, cannot be thrown out as not maintainable, solely on the ground of res judicata.

67. Apart from the fact that the order of the Joint Collector dated 13.04.1998 cannot operate as res judicata as it was an order passed without jurisdiction, there is also one more fact that vitiates the said order. The land owner Har Kuwar Pershad, who was an advocate and who consented to a sale being made in favour of the protected tenant Kurma Komaraiah, had obviously played a huge fraud upon (1) the cooperative society; (2) the competent authority under the ULC Act; and (3) the Revenue Divisional Authority under the 1950 Tenancy Act. She had taken a stand before the competent authority under ULC Act that the lands had already been sold in favour of the cooperative society and that therefore she was entitled to exemption under Section 20(1)(a) of the ULC Act, 1976. After taking such a stand and repeatedly litigating under the ULC authorities, the land owner Har Kuwar Pershad filed a joint application and a consent affidavit before the Revenue Divisional Officer in May, 1996 for the sale of the land to the protected tenant suppressing all the above. The Revenue Divisional Officer, who passed the order dated 20.07.1996 was not aware of (1) the proceedings under the ULC Act; (2) the stand taken by the land owner in the proceedings under the ULC Act; and (3) the sale in favour of the cooperative society. In fact, it was not only the land owner Har Kuwar Parshad, who suppressed the proceedings that went on before the competent authority under the ULC Act, right VRS, J & JUD, J and batch from the year 1981 up to the year 2007, but also the protected tenant, who suppressed the same before the Revenue Divisional Officer in the proceedings under the ULC Act, 1976. The protected tenant was also contesting the order dated 20-08-985 passed under Section 8(5) of the ULC Act in series of appeals. There were other persons, who had purchased certain other lands from the land owner and all of them kept the litigation under the ULC Act alive from the year 1985 up to the year 2008 when the Act was repealed in the State of Andhra Pradesh. But all of them kept the competent authority under the Tenancy Act, 1985 in dark about these proceedings.

84. As we have pointed out earlier, the land owner Har Kuwar Pershad, who was also an advocate, had clearly taken everyone for a ride. Through her GPA she defended the proceedings under the ULC Act, on the ground that the property had been sold to a co- operative house building society and that therefore the lands were exempt under Section 20(1)(a) of the ULC Act. Even while doing so, she entered into an agreement with Kurma Komaraiah and sold it by using the office of the RDO under Section 38(1) of the Tenancy and Agricultural lands Act, 1950. In the proceedings before the competent authority under the ULC Act, she did not take a plea that there was a protected tenant whose rights cannot be affected. In the proceedings before the RDO under the 1950 Act she did not make a mention (i) either about the final statement made under Section 9 of the ULC Act; (ii) or about the sales in favour of the cooperative house building society.