KUNHI VELAYI LIAS VELAYUDHAN Vs. P K VELAYUDHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision petitioner is the tenant, and seeks to revise the order by the lower court directing the revision petitioner to give 50 paras and 9 edangalies of paddy with interest to the respondent. The court has directed the money value of the aforesaid rent to be calculated at the gazette rate. The facts in the revision petition are not complicated, and can be shortly narrated. The plaintiff respondent is the landlord, and has claimed the aforesaid rent in commodity as being due to him on account of the fair rent for 1133 (M.E.) with interest at 5 per cent. The revision petitioner admits not having discharged the obligation, but claims being entitled to interest of 71/2 paras of paddy on the munpattom amount, which he was authorised to deduct from the rent due from him. It is common ground that, if the petitioner be allowed that quantum of paddy as interest, the liability to pay the rent sued, upon, would stand discharged. The objection to the interest being allowed at that rate, is that it was arrived at when 67 1/2 paras of paddy had been agreed to be the rent; but in proceedings for fair rent in 1954 that quantity had been reduced to 34 paras and 2 1/2 edangalies of paddy, and the right to deduct paddy on account of interest, in such changed circumstances, no longer subsists. The lower court has found substance in the objections and has decreed the suit, holding that the right to deduct paddy on account of interest cannot survive the proceedings for the fixation of fair rent.

(2.) It is clear that the view is incorrect; for, obligations arising from contracts can be discharged under given circumstances, and the tenants right to deduct has been conferred by the contract. Under S.16 of The Malabar Tenancy Act the obligation to pay rent is variable, but that power does not extend beyond, and the right to deduct interest on account of munpattom is not so intimately connected with the fixation of fair rent as to be governed by the section. Therefore permission for deduction would not be varied by exercise of powers under the section, not, as a matter of fact, any such order been given in this case. It follows that the right of the tenant has not been lost unless the landlord claims impossibility of performance or frustration. But then, changed conditions, under all circumstances, are not sufficient ground for discharging the obligation. In Davis Contractors, Ltd. v. Fareham U.D.C. (1956) A.C. 696, Lord Radcliffe observed, at page 729, the rule in these words:-