Judgment. This revision petition involves a short point, which has some degree of interest. The revision petitioner is the petitioner before the Revenue Court of Kumbakonam in an application for resumption of lands for personal cultivation under section 4-A (2) of the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection Act (XXV of 1955). As is well-known section 4-A declares the right of a landlord to resume possession from a cultivating tenant of an extent not exceeding one-half of the lands leased out to such tenant, for purposes of his personal cultivation. But this section is qualified by section 4-A (5) which is in the following terms: “No person who is not entitled to resume possession under this section on the day the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection (Amendment) Act, 1956, comes into force, shall be deemed to be so entitled by reason of any subsequent change in his circumstances.” In the present matter, the cultivating tenant (respondent in the Court below) has been paying rent on this holding as on warram tenure, not merely to the petitioner but even to his predecessor-in-title. The petitioner (revision petitioner) alleged an oral agreement under which the respondent agreed to surrender possession on a particular date. But he failed to do so, and this is one of the grounds upon which the revision petitioner attempts to have the order of the lower Court set aside. But however this might be, the presiding officer of the Revenue Court found, as a question of fact, that the petitioner was not the landlord on the relevant date referred to in section 4-A (5) set forth by me earlier, and that, in consequence, he was not entitled to resume possession under section 4-A (1) of the Act. But, if the matter is to be judged from the standpoint of the previous landlord, that landlord was admittedly not entitled to resume possession under section 4-A because, within the scope of section 4-A (4), that landlord was disqualified upon one or more of the grounds stated in that sub-section, ‘as a disqualification for a landlord attempting to resume possession for personal cultivation. The learned presiding officer observed: “The petitioner who has merely stepped into the shoes of that landlord will have to suffer from the disqualification referred to in clause (4) of section 4-A”. This was one ground on which the petition was dismissed. The learned presiding officer observed: “The petitioner who has merely stepped into the shoes of that landlord will have to suffer from the disqualification referred to in clause (4) of section 4-A”. This was one ground on which the petition was dismissed. Learned counsel for the revision-petitioner urges that this ground is fallacious. According to him, the personal disqualifications attaching to the predecessor-in-title ought not to be considered when a decision is given upon the right of the present petitioner, who admittedly is free from such disqualification, to resume personal cultivation. With this argument I am inclined to agree. But the petitioner has clearly to be non-suited with reference to his application upon a stronger and more cogent ground. Section 4 (5) explicitly declares that a person who was not entitled to resume possession on the day the Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection (Amendment) Act, 1956, came into force, cannot be subsequently entitled by reason of any change in the circumstances. Admittedly, the petitioner was not so entitled, because he was not a landlord at all in respect of the holding on the relevant date. He became subsequently entitled by virtue of a change in his circumstances, viz., the purchase of this holding, which entitled him to apply under section 4-A (1). Hence, within the scope of section 4-A (5), the petitioner could not sustain this application. The argument is that section 4-A (5) is limited by the language of section 4-A (4), and that the words “any subsequent change in his circumstances” must be interpreted as referring only to the disqualifications specified in section 4-A (4). I see no reason to interpret section 4-A (5) in this manner, as the words of the section are plain and unambiguous. Further the legislature has not used other qualifying words, which would restrict the application of the section as it stands. It is a well-understood canon of interpretation of statutes, which has even recently been affirmed by the Supreme Court in Sri Ram Ram Narain v. State of Bombay1, that where the words of a statute are plain and unambiguous, and can be given effect to as they stand, it is not permissible for the Court to import other phraseology of restriction or qualification which has not been used. Consequently I am of the view that the order of the learned presiding officer of the Revenue Court is correct, though not wholly upon the reasoning set forth in that order. With regard to the surrender, upon the record this seems to merely amount to a promise to surrender possession, which would ordinarily be enforceable under the civil law. But, undoubtedly, it will not affect the right of the cultivating tenant to remain in possession of his holding without eviction under Madras Act XXV of 1955 ; this proposition is undeniable, and admits of no controversy or dispute. There is another ground of justification for the order of the lower Court, viz., that the petitioner applied for cultivation of this extent upon pannai which ordinarily means hired labour. But section 2 (ee) defines personal cultivation as cultivation where the person “contributes his own physical labour or that of the members of his family, in the cultivation of that land”. However, I am not deciding the application upon this point, since it appears to me that the application is very clearly precluded upon the facts, by virtue of the language of section 4-A (5) already referred to. In result, therefore, the revision petition fails and is dismissed. But since this might very probably have been a bona fide attempt on the part of this petitioner to obtain possession of the holding that he had purchased, for the purpose of direct cultivation, and he himself does not appear to be a landlord possessed of more appreciable properties, I direct that the parties shall bear their own costs. K.L.B. ------------- Petition dismissed.