Judgment :- 1. An agricultural dispute relating to denial of employment to one Moideen, was referred to the Agricultural Tribunal, Ottappalam. The land owners named in the reference order were Devaki Amma and Lakshmikutty Aroma The Tribunal passed an award to the effect that Moideen was a permanent agricultural worker of Devaki Amma. 2. The award was set aside by this Court, in Ext. P3 judgment in O.P.No.1618 of 1978 filed by Devaki Amma. This Court held that the Tribunal had not properly construed the scope of S.42 of the Agricultural Workers Act, read with S.20) and S.2(m). It was also held that the scope of the "Explanation" to S.7(1) was not properly kept in mind. 3. After remand, the Tribunal again passed Ext. P5 award granting relief to Moideen; and the writ petition is directed against Ext. P3. 4. It is contended that where an order of reference names two persons as joint landowners, it is not open to the Tribunal to go behind the recital therein and hold that there is no joint ownership, and that the landowner is only one of the two. I would have examined this contention if it had been raised in the earlier writ petition and left open. Ext. P3 judgment does not disclose that any such point was taken at the time. On the other hand, it shows that Devaki Amma was prepared to proceed on the assumption that that aspect of the question could be ignored, and that the case could be decided on other points. It does not appear from Ext. P5 that the point was taken before the Tribunal also. 5. The award shows that Devaki Amma's son had given evidence before the Tribunal that she was cultivating six acres of land with tapioca, and was also having 85 cents of paddy fields. S.42 lays down that many of the provisions of the Act shall not apply in relation to landowners not holding more than one hectare of land. The word used in S.42 is "land", and not "agricultural land". Even otherwise, land cultivated with tapioca is evidently agricultural land. The petitioner was therefore a landowner with more than one hectare of land; she and her lands were thus ineligible to be exempted under S.42. 6. The word used in S.42 is "land", and not "agricultural land". Even otherwise, land cultivated with tapioca is evidently agricultural land. The petitioner was therefore a landowner with more than one hectare of land; she and her lands were thus ineligible to be exempted under S.42. 6. Under the Explanation to S.7(1), a'permanent worker' is an agricultural worker "bound by custom or contract or otherwise" to work in the agricultural land of the owner. The word custom cannot be understood, in the context, in the strict jurisprudential sense so as to include only a uniform practice of immemorial origin, without any interruption. When the statute speaks of a person bound by custom, the enquiry into the existence of the custom or practice cannot go back to a period before his birth. The words "or otherwise" also indicate that some kind of implied understanding or a reasonably long course of conduct, in the matter of employment, would be sufficient to support a person's claim for permanency as an agricultural worker under a particular landowner. There was evidence before the Tribunal to show that Moideen was being engaged by Devaki Amma and the joint family of which she was a member, for agricultural work in the land allotted to her, for at least five years. In my opinion, the Tribunal's finding based on such evidence cannot be too closely canvassed in proceedings before this Court under Art.226 of the Constitution, by a process of interpretation calculated to divest the Act of all its clothing and to expose its bony frame alone for clinical examination. No grounds to interfere. Original Petition dismissed without costs.