Judgment :- 1. The revision petitioner-landlord filed an application under S.17 of Kerala Act I of 1964, for resuming a portion of the holding from his tenant. The Section permits resmuption by small holders. The Land Tribunal found that the applicants-landlord was having only less than four acres of land and that he was therefore a small holder, entitled to resume one half of the holding. The application was thus allowed, by an order passed in August, 1973. The tenant appealed. While the appeal was pending, the landlord acquired one acre of land in May, 1974. With this acquisition, the total extent of land in his possession rose to 4 acres 47 cents. The appellate authority held that the resumption application had ceased to be maintainable the moment the extent of land in the landlord's possession had gone above four acres. In this view, the appeal was allowed and the resumption application was dismissed. This is how the matter has been dealt with by the appellate authority: "Now the question is whether by the subsequent acquisition of 1 acre the respondent's application for resumption has become not entertainable. A reading of S.17 with the proviso thereto clearly indicates that resumption can be allowed only if the applicant is a small holder. His status will have to be considered as on the date of actual allowing of resumption and not as on the date of the application. If this view is accepted the applicant respondent, at present, is not a small holder as he has in addition to the 3 acres 47 cents come into possession of additional 1 acre as per the original of Ext. D1. The respondent's learned advocate submitted that the provisions of Transfer of Property Act are not abrogated by the statute and there is no prohibition against any person acquiring and possessing property. He contended that at the time of filing the application the respondent was eligible to resume one half of the land as small holder and a subsequent acquisition of property by him cannot deprive him of that right. Since on a reading of S.17, I am satisfied it it is the duty of the court or the tribunal to look into the status of the applicant at the time of actual allowing of resumption, the subsequent acquisition has rendered the respondent's application incompetent. Since on a reading of S.17, I am satisfied it it is the duty of the court or the tribunal to look into the status of the applicant at the time of actual allowing of resumption, the subsequent acquisition has rendered the respondent's application incompetent. In this view the order appealed against is set aside and the respondent's application for resumption under S.17 is dismissed". The landlord challenges the above view, in this revision. According to him, the appellate authority should not have taken note of the acquisition of land made in 1974, and decided the question on that basis. 2. "Small-holder" is defined in S.2(52) of the Act, and reads as follows: "(52) "small holder" means a landlord who does not have interest in land exceeding eight standard acres or ten acres in extent, whichever is less, as owner, intermediary, or cultivating tenant, or in two or more of the above capacities, so however that the extent of non-resumable land in his possession as owner, or as cultivating tenant, or partly as owner and partly as cultivating tenant, does not exceed (i) two and a half standard acres; or (ii) four acres in extent, whichever is greater. Explanation For the purposes of this clause, a person who was in possession of, or had interest in, land exceeding the limits specified in this clause immediately before the 18th December, 1957 but such extent of land was reduced to the said limits or below by partition, or transfer effected after the date mentioned above, shall not be deemed to be a small holder, nor shall such partition or transfer entitle the allottee or transferee to exercise the rights of a small holder in respect of the land allotted or transferred to him;" Shorn of details; what is material for our purpose is to note that the limit is four acres i.e. a person having more than four acres of land in his possession is not a small holder. The explanation is also important, because reduction of the extent to less than four acres by partition or transfer after 18-12-1957 will not enable a person to claim the status. The explanation is also important, because reduction of the extent to less than four acres by partition or transfer after 18-12-1957 will not enable a person to claim the status. S.17 of the Act is in the following terms: "Resumption by small holder Without prejudice to the right of resumption under S.16, a small holder (other than a sthani or the trustee or owner of a place of public religious worship) may resume from his tenant a portion of the holding not exceeding one half: Provided that, by such resumption, the total extent of land in the possession of the small holder shall not be raised above two and a half standard acres in extent, whichever is greater: Provided further that, no land shall be resumed under this section from a tenant who was entitled to fixity of tenure in respect of his holding immediately before the 21st January, 1961, under any law then in force." S.18 stipulates the rule that resumption applications are to be filed within one year of the commencement of the Act, subject to certain exceptions in favour of minors, members of the Armed Forces etc. and S.22 lays down that a resumption application shall be in such form and shall contain such particulars as may be prescribed. Column (6) of Form I prescribed under the Rules shows that the application should contain details of all lands in the possession of the applicant or his family. In the case of an application under S.17, the Form also provides for a declaration by the applicant in the following terms: "I declare that I was not having possession or interest in land, immediately before 18th December, 1957 in excess of the limits specified in clause (52) of S.2, nor have I acquired any interest in land after the said date either by way of partition or transfer." The above are the main statutory provisions with reference to which the question has to be considered. 3. Obviously, the appellate authority is not right in observing that the status of the applicant "will have to be considered as on the date of actual allowing of resumption and not as on the date of the application." Take the case of an applicant who was having six acres of land before 18-12-1957. 3. Obviously, the appellate authority is not right in observing that the status of the applicant "will have to be considered as on the date of actual allowing of resumption and not as on the date of the application." Take the case of an applicant who was having six acres of land before 18-12-1957. He files an application for resumption under S.17 and then makes a gift of three acres to another, so that by the time the question of "actual" resumption" arises, he possesses only three acres. Can he be, treated as a small holder? To do so will be to ignore the Explanation to S.2 (52). The scope of the Explanation came up for consideration before this Court in Vasudevan v. Madhavan Nair (1978 KLT 298); and the facts of the case and the conclusion reached are instructive. One Sankaran Ankan died in 1963 and his legal heirs applied for resumption under S.17. The properties jointly held by the applicants did not exceed the limit in S.2(52); but some of them were individually owning small items of other lands, and if these were also added to the joint properties, the aggregate was in excess of the limit. The Land Tribunal and the appellate authority refused to treat the applicants as small holders for the above reason; but this Court emphatically disagreed. After referring to the Explanation to S.2 (52), and the definitions of the terms 'landlord' and 'person', the Division Bench observed: "The landlord in respect of the holding in the present case at the time of filing the application was the body of individuals consisting of all the applicants. That body admittedly owned only an extent of 3 acres 72 cents and it was therefore entitled to be regarded as a 'small holder' for the purposes of the Act. It is also not dented that each one of the applicants taken individually also satisfied the definition of 'small holder', though that fact is not strictly relevant in law when the application is made by the entire group or body consisting of all the heirs of a deceased person in whom the landlord's interest has become jointly vested. For the purposes of eligibility for the grant of relief of resumption under S.17 the preliminary question to be determined is whether the applicant is a small holder. For the purposes of eligibility for the grant of relief of resumption under S.17 the preliminary question to be determined is whether the applicant is a small holder. Going by the definition of the expression "small holder", it is only a 'landlord' who can fall within the scope of the definition subject to his satisfying the conditions mentioned therein. The landlord in this case being the entire group or body of persons consisting of all the heirs of deceased Sankaran Ankan what has to be seen is whether that group had at the relevant time in its possession as owner or as cultivating tenant or partly as owner and partly as cultivating tenant, land exceeding 21/2 standard acres or 4 acres in extent. In this reckoning only the lands owned or possessed by the group and in respect of which there is community or jointness of interest are to be taken note of. The properties that may be individually owned or possessed by the different members of the group over which there is no commonness of interest cannot be regarded as properties possessed or owned by the landlord, namely the group or body consisting of all the heirs of the deceased Sankaran Ankan. The view taken by the Land Tribunal and the Appellate Authority that even the small extents of properties separately owned by some Of the individual applicants, in respect of which the other applicants have no right or interest whatever, are to be included in calculating the extent owned or possessed by the applicants as a group for the purpose of determining whether the applicants can claim the status of a small holder is therefore clearly erroneous." It is clear from the above that the relevant time, for the purposes of S.17, is the time of filing the application; at any rate, it is anything other than the date of the order allowing resumption, as understood by the appellate authority in this case. 4. Probably, what the appellate authority meant was that it was not enough for the applicant to be within the limits of S.2(52) at the time of filing the application, but that he should also continue to be so till resumption was actually permitted and given effect to. 4. Probably, what the appellate authority meant was that it was not enough for the applicant to be within the limits of S.2(52) at the time of filing the application, but that he should also continue to be so till resumption was actually permitted and given effect to. The status should continue without change right up to the time the fruits of the litigation are realised, and any acquisition of land having the effect of taking him out of the limits of S.2(52) would be fatal to the application, even if it be after the decision of the Tribunal and before disposal of the appeal. 5. Two questions are thus involved, even though the one is intimately connected with the other. The first is whether an application by a small holder under S.17 is liable to be thrown out if the applicant gets or acquires some land during its pendency, and thereby goes out of the limits of S.2(52); and the other is as regards the competency of the appellate court to take note of "subsequent events". 6. It is settled law that the right to relief should normally depend on the state of facts as they are, at the time of instituting action. Thus, there could be no difficulty in holding that at the time of approaching the Tribunal under S.17, the applicant should be a smaller holder. The latter part of the "declaration" in Form I (extracted earlier) also supports this view. The Explanation to S.2 (52) only means that in assessing the position as on the date of application, certain transactions made after 18-12-1957 will have to be ignored. But it is a different thing to say that the position should remain unchanged during the pendency of proceedings before the Tribunal (and even before higher tribunals and courts), and that if the applicant happens to get some land during that period so that the aggregate exceeds the limits of S.2 (52), his application has to be dismissed as not maintainable. This will be a departure from the normal rule stated earlier, and such a departure can be justified, if at all, only under exceptional circumstances and with reference to the statutory provision or a clear legislative intention. There appears to be no policy behind the Act that a small holder should always remain a small holder. This will be a departure from the normal rule stated earlier, and such a departure can be justified, if at all, only under exceptional circumstances and with reference to the statutory provision or a clear legislative intention. There appears to be no policy behind the Act that a small holder should always remain a small holder. The ceiling provisions in Chapter III do not make any distinction between small holders and others; the small holder, including the one who is able to resume some land from his tenant, is not precluded from purchasing more land so that he too can reach the level common for all. The facts of the present case may make the position clear. The applicant was having only 3.47 acres of land in his possession when the Land Tribunal allowed resumption of another 56 cents, in August, 1973. Even if he is an adult unmarried person, he could hold up to six acres of land under S.82. That is, after the resumption order had become final, he could have purchased another 1 acre and 97 cents of land and retained the whole in possession. Does it really make any difference if the above extra extent is acquired before finalisation of the resumption proceedings, and during its pendency? 1s there any danger of the legislative intention being defeated thereby? The answer, to my mind, must be in the negative. 7. S.15 of the Act permits resumption of land from a tenant for constructing a residential building. S.16 allows, resumption for personal cultivation. S.19 contemplates resumption of lands interspersed within plantations, if they are necessary "for the purposes of the plantation". In all these cases of resumption, S.23 provides for a postmortem examination and lays down that if the lands resumed are not used for the purposes in question, the tenants could ask for and obtain restoration. No similar provision is there regarding resumption by small holders, under S.16A and S.17. Immediately after obtaining resumption from a tenant, a small holder could purchase other lands and become a "big holder", without being asked to restore the lands to the tenant. This, in my view, is an indication that the legislature did not mind acquisition of some extra land by the small holder, quite apart from what he may be able to get by way of resumption. 8. This, in my view, is an indication that the legislature did not mind acquisition of some extra land by the small holder, quite apart from what he may be able to get by way of resumption. 8. Another possible approach to the matter is the one indicated by the Supreme Court in Rameswar v. Jot Ram (AIR.1976 SC. 49), though the case deals directly with the second question formulated in paragraph (6) above. There, some tenants of a "large landowner" applied for purchase of ownership of the lands in their holdings under S.18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953. The applications' were allowed, the price payable was fixed, and the first instalments were also deposited. While the matter was pending in appeal, the landowner died; and on devolution, the legal heirs were found to be only small-holders. Since the right to purchase was available only as against large landowners, the argument was that the order passed by the primary authority was liable to be set aside in appeal. The Supreme Court rejected this contention by pointing out that in an ideal system, a litigant should get relief immediately he asks for it, and that any delay caused by appeals and revisions, and new developments during their pendency, should not normally destroy the right to that relief. If the adjudication regarding the rights of the tenants under the Punjab Act had become final soon after they had approached the primary authority, the legal heirs of the deceased landlord could have had no arguments at all. Why should the procedural delay confer a benefit on them, asked the Court; and it was stated: "The philosophy of the approach which commends itself to us is that a litigant who seeks justice in a perfect legal system gets it when he asks for it. But because human institutions of legal justice function slowly, and in quest of perfection, appeals and reviews at higher levels are provided, the end product comes considerably late. But these higher courts pronounce upon the rights of parties as the facts stood when the first court was first approached. But because human institutions of legal justice function slowly, and in quest of perfection, appeals and reviews at higher levels are provided, the end product comes considerably late. But these higher courts pronounce upon the rights of parties as the facts stood when the first court was first approached. The delay of years flows from the infirmity of the judicial institution and this protraction of the Court machinery shall prejudice no one." It was also emphasized that the new relationships emerging from drastic measures of land reforms should get stabilized, and should be kept free of the fluctuations arising from the accidents of litigation. Observed the Court: "Agrarian reform law affects a considerable number of people and to keep rights uncertain over a long stretch of time till appeals and reviews and revisions and other processes are exhausted, is to inject unpredictability of results, for it is quite on the cards that a landlord may die in the long course of litigation, or other events may happen at later stages beyond the trial Court. Can rights of parties fluctuate with such uncertain contingencies? If so, stabilization of land ownership, so vital to the new pattern of agrarian relations will be postponed for a long time. 1s not the judicial task simplified by adopting the golden rule that the rights of parties must be determined when they seek justice and not when the last Court has had its last say, long years after the litigation was initiated? A system of orderlines about rights in land will result from this approach. More than all, the sounder rule of law as between rival claims to consideration of, or indifference to, subsequent events is surely that which excludes the later event factually or indifference to, subsequent events is surely that which excludes the later event factually or legally. Such a reading of the statutory scheme rhymes well with rapid agrarian reform contemplated by the framers." The desirability of avoiding multi-decked systems of judicial review, for speedy implementation of agrarian reforms, was also referred to: "Had the scheme of agrarian reform in the Punjab been simple and had the virtue of early finality, so necessary in such a measure been present, the law would have operated with speed and changed the rural landscape radically, instead of provoking a heavy run of never-ending litigation. S.24 of the Act has had this unwitting effect. S.24 of the Act has had this unwitting effect. Too many tiers of quasi-judicial review, too long at each deck and in a system which is slow-moving tempt disappointed parties to litigate to the disastrous end. Such a statutory creation, calculated to give ultimate justice is like a Frankenstein' monster, the very prolonged over judicialised litigative engine bleeding justice to death." And distinguishing an earlier decision, where a subsequent event was permitted to be taken note of as an exception to the normal rule, it was stated: "In P. Venketeswarlu Motor & General Traders, AIR 1975 SC. 1409,1410 this Court dealt with the adjectival activism relating to post institution circumstances. Two propositions were laid down. Firstly, it was held that it is basic to our processual jurisprudence that the right to relief must be judged to exist as on the date a suitor institutes the legal proceeding'. This is an emphatic statement that the right of a party is determined by the facts as they exist on the date the action is instituted. Granting the presence of such facts, then he is entitled to its enforcement. Later developments cannot defeat his right because, as explained earlier, had the court found his facts to be true the day he sued he would have got his decree. The Court's procedural delays cannot deprive him of legal justice or rights crystallised in the initial cause of action." 9. If the above principles are applied to the facts of the case on hand, there can be no doubt that the appellate authority's decision cannot be justified. The, application for resumption was filed in June, 1970 (apparently, the applicant was in the Armed Forces). It was allowed three years later, in August, 1973. The one acre of land was acquired only in May, 1974. In this case, it appears to have been a purchase; but in another, it can as well be a bequest. If the rights of the petitioner "crystallised in the initial cause of action" had been finally decided any time within three years of his approaching the Tribunal, there could have been no case against his claim at all. It is not possible to hold that simply because the matter had dragged on, he should be denied the relief he was otherwise entitled to. 10. It is not possible to hold that simply because the matter had dragged on, he should be denied the relief he was otherwise entitled to. 10. As already noticed, the Supreme Court decision afore-cited also answers the second question relating to the propriety of the appellate or revisional court taking note of every subsequent event, not only for moulding relief, but also for rejecting the right set up, as in this case: The "sounder rule of law", it is plain, is to exclude the later event 'factually or legally". 11. An argument is advanced that resumption being an exception to the general rule of fixity, the provisions relating thereto should be strictly construed. But the Act is not one which stops with conferment of fixity. It goes further, and provides for many other things. Land reforms in our State had suffered a long gestation and its birth was conditioned by policy considerations, often reflecting a compromise of conflicting claims. And despite the apparent dichotomy of providing both for fixity and resumption, the legislation is generally designed to do away with the distinction between landlord and tenant and make every one the owner, though only to end up ultimately in the ceiling provisions of Chapter III. The Act thus defies any attempt to adopt the rules of interpretation applicable to single purpose legislations. 12. The result of the foregoing discussion is that the appellate authority was not right in taking note of the acquisition of one acre of land made by the petitioner in May, 1974 and holding on that basis that the application under S.17 had ceased to be maintainable. Its order is therefore set aside and that of the Tribunal restored. The CRP. is allowed. Parties will bear their own costs. Allowed.