CHERUNNI ALIAS JOHN Vs. KAVAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners father applied under S.16 of the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929, as amended by Act XXXIII of 1951 and Act VII of 1954, hereinafter referred to as the Act, for fixing the fair rent of a coconut garden, which he was holding under a lease from the respondent and her predecessors. The first lease deed, which was of the year 1934, stipulated an annual rent of 5500 cocoanuts; later, after the amendment Act VII of 1954 came into force, a lease deed Ext. B2 for a period of one year was executed by the petitioners father to the respondent on March 10, 1955, which stipulated the annual rent at 4300 coconuts. The application under S.16 of the Act was made in June 1955.

(2.) Sub-s.(1) and (2) of S.9 of the Act prescribe the mode in which fair rent has to be determined in the case of a garden land, like that in the present case, and are alone relevant, and may be quoted:

(3.) It may be mentioned, Ext. B2 recites that the fair rent was fixed under it at 4300 cocoanuts per annum, in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Before the learned Subordinate Judge, the contention was advanced on behalf of the respondent, that fair rent thus having been determined, no application under S.16 was maintainable-a contention which is unsustainable on the terms of S.16 and was conceded to be so, by the learned counsel, who appeared before me for the respondent. It may be, that the Subordinate Judge did not go the whole length with the respondent in giving effect to the contention, but relying on P.R. Subba Iyer v. W. R. Chetty, 1958 KLT Short Notes 38, a case decided under the Madras Buildings Lease and Rent Control Act XXV of 1949, which was also conceded on behalf of the respondent to be distinguishable, she deduced a principle, as applicable to the case in hand, which, to state in her own words is, that it is only in cases where an agreement of compromise has not been arrived at freely and there has been an overreaching of one party by the other, that the Rent Controller can interfere. There is no reason why the above principle should not be made applicable in the case of fair rent of properties under the Malabar Tenancy, Act also. Then the learned Judge proceeded to observe, that even if there is nothing in the Act which precludes a tenant from filing a petition before the Rent Court, he has not established that the landlord has in any way overreached him in fixing fair rent and therefore concluded, that the Rent Court ought to have accepted the rent as per that agreement as the fair rent of the properties. This is not to say, as was the argument of the respondents learned counsel, that the agreement of parties as to fair rent, was but treated as an item of evidence; for that matter, there was other evidence in the case which, though rejected by the Rent Court, had still to be considered by the learned Judge in view of the appeal taken by the tenant and was not adverted to. On the contrary, the learned Judge took the view that the agreement as to the fair rent voluntarily entered into by the tenant is conclusive, but in doing so, it was overlooked, that the object of the Act is to enable the tenant and in certain cases the landlord, to reopen agreements which had been entered into for fixing fair rent, although undoubtedly an agreement between them as to the amount of the gross produce, or as to the fair rent, purported to be arrived at in accordance with the Act, as in Ext. B2, will have its due evidentiary value in a proceeding like the present.