LAKSHMIKUTTY AMMA Vs. RAMAKRISHNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant sued the respondent for the realisation of rent due for the year 1133 M. E. corresponding to 1957-58 under a lease. Her case was, that the property had been outstanding on lease with the respondent on a lease of the year 1127 M. E. corresponding to 1951-52, at an annual rent of 21 parahs of paddy, and that from the year 1130 M. E. corresponding to 1954-55, the rent was enhanced by agreement to 35 parahs of paddy per annum. The respondent contended that the original lease was of the year 1122 M. E. corresponding to 1946-47 at an annual rent of 10 parahs of paddy which was afterwards enhanced to 14 parahs and that he had been paying accordingly. The two courts have found the lease of the year 1127, and the enhancement of rent from the year 1130, to be true; but while the Munsiff decreed the appellant's claim in full the District Judge on appeal, decreed the claim only at the rate of 21 parahs of paddy.

(2.) The enhancement of rent to 35 parahs in the year 1130 was in consequence of additional irrigation facilities becoming available from the Malampuzha reservoir. For refusing to give a decree at the enhanced rate, the District Judge relied on S.14 of the Malabar Irrigation Works (Construction and Levy of Cess) Act, Act VII of 1947, which is in the following terms:

(3.) However, in the section itself, there is a saving of the provisions of the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929, which are therefore left unaffected. If the appellant's claim is well founded on the provisions of that Act, that is to say, if the freedom of contract in this respect is recognised by the Act, the bar under S.14 aforesaid does not come into play. So to read and understand S.14 is not, as contended for the respondent, to violate any canon of interpretation of the proviso to a section. That canon is couched thus by Maxwell in his work on Interpretation of Statutes, 10th edition, page 162: