NARAYANAN NAMBOODIRI Vs. AYYAPPAN PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) No error of law.

(2.) The decree under execution is for jenmikaram due under the provisions of (Travancore) Act V of 1071 from the respondent 'kudiyan' to the appellant 'jenmi'. Having regard to S.5 of that Act which divests the 'jenmi' of all interest in the land save the right to receive jenmikaram thereon and makes the 'kudiyan' the owner subject only to the payment of jenmikaram, jenmikaram cannot be rent or michavaram as those words are usually understood so as to bring the decree debt here under execution within the exclusion in S.2(c)(ix) of Act 31 of 1958 that Act carries no definition of either rent or michavaram and so these words have to be understood in their ordinary sense as periodical payments to a landlord for the use and occupation of his land. That being so, the liability under the decree passed in 1953 is a debt as defined by S.2(c) of Act 31 of 1958 and the courts below were right in ordering that it be scaled down under S.5(1)(a) of that Act. The objection that the respondent judgment debtor has not shown that he is an agriculturist so as to make the liability a debt within the meaning of Act 31 of 1958 is taken here for the first time. To the judgment debtor's claim that the decree had to be scaled down under the provisions of Act 31 of 1958 the only objection taken by the appellant decree holder was that jenmikaram came within the exclusion in S.2(c)(ix) and no dispute was raised as to the judgment debtor's status as an agriculturist.

(3.) I dismiss this appeal with costs.