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On appeal by the appellant, the appellate Tribunal (Sub-Court) dis-missed the appeal. During the hearing, it allowed an application by the appellant for adducing additional evidence consisting of an order dated 1.7.72 in Petition No. 23/72 filed by the temple before the Record Officer, Pattugottai. In the counter thereto (a copy of which was placed before us by the appellants' counsel), the appellant admitted : "No doubt, the applicant (temple) was the landholder" but pleaded that once the Act 26/63 came into force, the land vested in the State and he therefore denied that the temple was the landlord on that the appellant was only a tenant. The application No. 23/72 of the temple above stated "was allowed" and it was held that the appellant was only a tenant. That order has become final. The other document produced as additional evidence was the tenancy Register which again showed the appellant only as a tenant. The appellate Tribunal thus relied on the additional evidence produced by the appellant to hold against the appellant. Appellant relied upon the statutory presumption in Section 65 of the 1963 Act to say that the land must be presumed to be ryoti. The appellate Tribunal said that in the present case, "it has been proved clearly that the entire properties mentioned in the appeal are the private properties, belonging to the Respondent. Further, it has been proved by the Respondent through documentary evidence, that the appel-lant has been cultivating the entire properties mentioned in the appeal, in the capacity as a tenant only. The appellate Tribunal also relied on the amendment by T.N. Act 27 of 1966 relating to exemption in favour of temple from provilling self-cultivation and observed :

On the other hand, it was contended by the learned counsel for the respondent Sri A.T.M. Sampath that, before the lower tribunal and the High Court, the respondent temple relied only upon Section 2(13)(ii)(a) and not upon Section 2(l3)(ii)(b) as contended by the appellant's counsel and hence T.N. Act 27/66 squarely applied and on a proper interpretation of the said Act 27/1966 temples were "exempt" from proving self cultivation even for the 3 year period and it was never intended otherwise. Even assuming that the presumption on Section 65 applied, the propositions 4, 5, 6 laid down by the Full Bench in Periannan v. Amman Koil, AIR (1952) Mad. 323 (FB) were still applicable not only because of the exemption provided in T.N, Act 27 of 1966 but also because the decisions in Chidambararn Chettiar v. Santhanaramaswami Odayar & Others, [1968] 2 SCR 754, P. Venkataswamy v. Dr. B. Rami Reddy, [1976] 2 SCC 665 and Pollisetti Pullamma v. Kalluri Kameswaramma, AIR (1991) SC 604 imported a wrong test. The said decisions had applied the theory of lands attached to the manors of English nobleman into Indian law and this was not the intention of the legislature either in 1908 or thereafter as pointed out by Viswanatha Sastri, J. in Narayudu v. Venkatas Ramanamurthi, (1949) 2 MLJ 6233 (approved by the majority in Rcriannan's case), Viswanatha Sastri, .J. had observed :

The legislature, however, noticed that under the Rules made under the Madras HR & CE Act, 1959 temples were prohibited from pannai cultivation without obtaining the previous approval of the Deputy commis-sioner and that therefore it would be difficult for temples to prove personal cultivation as required by Section 9(2)(a), with a view to avoid hardship to temples in proving pannai cultivation, the legislature thefore thought of introducing new provision of exemption by which it sought to exclude temples from the need to prove personal cultivation under the proviso to Section 9(2)(a).
It is therefore permissible for the Court to take notice of "the evil which was sought to be remedied" by the Amending Act 27/1966 by removing the said hardship experienced by temples. In our view the plain meaning of the proviso, after the amendment of 1966 is that, so far as the temples covered by the Madras HR & CE Act, 1959 were concerned, the proof of personal cultivation even for 3 years within a continuous period of 12 years immediately before 1.4.1960 was not required, for purposes of grant of ryotwari patta to the temple under Section 9(2)(a).