RAMAN GANGADHARAN Vs. KOCHUKUNJU LEKSHMANAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of proceedings to execute a decree for redemption passed by the District Court of Quilon on 30-8-1955. The decree awarded compensation for value of improvements and when the decree holder sought to obtain delivery on payment of the compensation fixed by the decree and the mortgage money, the judgment - debtor claimed a revaluation of the improvements. Two grounds were urged in support of that claim. The first one was that in view of the enactment of the Travancore Cochin Compensation for Tenants Improvements Act, 1956, he was entitled to value of improvements according to the provisions of that Act notwithstanding the decree settling the value of compensation as per the old customary law in Travancore and the other, that he was entitled to the value of further improvements effected by him subsequent to the date up to which compensation has been adjudged in the decree. The learned District Judge of Quilon before whom the matter came up for decision repelled both the contentions. Hence this appeal.

(2.) Both the grounds mentioned above were repeated before us in the appeal. We are at one with the learned Judge below that the first ground is absolutely without merit. S.5(1) of the Travancore Cochin Compensation for Tenants Improvements Act, 1956, on which Mr. T. K. Narayana Pillai depended upon in support of his argument on this aspect of the case, has reference only to suits pending on the date of the enactment and to suits instituted thereafter, or rather, to decrees passed after the enactment came into force. S.5 is titled Decree in eviction to be conditional on payment of compensation and sub-s.(1) reads:-

(3.) The second ground related to the valuation of improvements that are alleged to have been brought into existence after the date of the valuation made in the suit. That valuation was in 1949 and as mentioned earlier, the decree under execution was passed on 30-8-1955. Sub-s.(3) contemplates the award of compensation for improvements made subsequent to the date up to which compensation for improvements has been adjudged in the decree and in objections filed to the execution application the appellant set out that since the Commissioner submitted his report fixing the value of compensation, he had constructed two buildings in item 1 of A schedule to the decree and that in addition, he had planted 25 cocoanut trees, 3 cashewnut trees and 4 mango, trees. One of the grounds on which the learned District Judge negatived the claim for valuation of the subsequent improvements is that in order to enable the tenant to claim their value, such improvements should have been effected after the date of the decree. Normally a decree will be deemed to have settled the rights and liabilities of the parties as they stood on the date it bears, but sub-s.(3) contemplates payment of the value for improvements subsequent to the date up to which compensation for improvements has been adjudged in the decree. Plainly these words do not mean that compensation under this Sub-section can be paid only for improvements made after the date of the decree. A literal interpretation to exactly similar words occurring in the corresponding provisions of the Cochin Tenancy Act (S.6(3) of Act II of 1090) and the Malabar Tenants Improvements Act (S.6(3) of Madras Act I of 1900) is seen given respectively in the decisions reported in Subba Vadyar v. Godavari III Cochin Law Reports 75 and Godan Nambudiripad v. Krishnan Nambudiripad AIR 1926 Mad. 680 . Presumably the legislature was providing for cases where as in this case valuation happened to be made long before the date of the Trial Courts decree. The claim made in respect of subsequent improvements cannot therefore be negatived on this ground, particularly when in Travancore area payments used to be seldom made for improvements effected after the date of the institution of the suit. Such improvements have in the past invariably been regarded as not to have been made bona fide and as such even though wellnigh four years had elapsed between the date of the valuation & the passing of the decree, the appellant could not be blamed for not asking for a fresh valuation before the date of the decree. Indeed the objection petition would appear to have been deliberately worded in terms of Sub-s.(3).