Enso Nona v. Somawathie and Others – sllr 1998 volume 3 page 239

In the case between Enso Nona (and the substituted applicant‑respondent, W. K. Punchi Nona, the lawful widow) and Somawathie and Others, with a competing claim by S. A. Dissanayake, the court addressed the issue of whether Ande rights to a paddy field pass by operation of law to the lawful widow upon the death of the original cultivator, irrespective of her own ability to conduct personal cultivation, and the validity of competing claims based on alleged contractual relationships. It was held that transmission of Ande rights occurs automatically under the Agrarian Services Act to the lawful widow, regardless of any subsequent acts or omissions or the physical ability of the widow to cultivate, reaffirming the principle that legal fiction attributes family members’ cultivation to the Ande c