SUBRAYA SHANBHOGUE Vs. KUNHIPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision arises ut of out application filed by the respondent tenant before the court below on 9.4.1955 under S.3(3) of the South Canara Cultivating Tenants' Protection Act (Madras Act VI of 1954) as amended by Act II of 1955. The prayer was for acceptance of a deposit of the rent due to the landlord for the year ending Vishu 1955, under a Chalgeni lease dated 24.4.1950 and filed in the case Ext. B14. This lease deed was for a term of one year and the rent reserved of 50 murahs of paddy and Rs. 18 was made payable in three instalments, 25 murahs of paddy by the 30th Thulam from the Karthigai crop, 25 murahs of paddy by 30th Magha Bahula from the Suggi crop and Rs. 18 by the 10th March 1951. The objection was raised by the revision petitioner herein, who was entitled to recover the rent as the usufructuary mortgagee from the landlord that the deposit was out of time, as made more than a month after the first and second instalments of the paddy portion of the rent accrued due though within a month of the due date of the last instalment of money. The court below repelled the objection and recorded full satisfaction of the rent due. Hence this revision.

(2.) Now Clause.(a) of sub-s.(3) of S.3 of the Act with which we are concerned is in the following terms:

(3.) It will be seen that the clause speaks of the deposit of 'rent and does not speak of each instalment thereof. The clause contemplates again a single deposit and not a series of deposits. It would appear therefore that a single deposit alone is called for even when there are more than one instalment of rent due and such deposit should be after the date of the last instalment i.e., when all the instalments have accrued due. Construing the corresponding provision in S.4(4) of the Madras Tenants and Ryots Protection Act (17 of 1946) for the deposit of 'each year's rent as it accrues due within two months from the date on which it becomes payable', Panchapakesa Ayyer, J., held in Chandra Kandi Kunhi Pathumma v. Avammad (1951) 1 MLJ 100, that it referred only to the rent accruing at the end of each year even when the rent was payable by custom or contract in two half yearly instalments. The learned Judge relied among other matters on the fact that the rent is fixed per year as in Ext. B14 herein though payable in instalments. In a prior ruling under the same section the learned Judge had held in respect of a tenant holding over, again as here, that a deposit by him of the year's rent within the time fixed was sufficient to entitle him to the concession under the Act even though he had not paid the instalment according to the original lease deed. See Abdulla v. Patinhare Kettu Tavazhi (1948) 2 MLJ 71 (Short Notes). There is a similar ruling by Mack, J., in Mannil v. Kesava Taravan (1948) 2 MLJ 46 (Short Notes).