CHEDALAVADA VENKAYYA AND ANR. Vs. PAYIDI TATAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE question is whether the appellant's house which is under attachment is exempted from attachment under Section 60(1)(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure. Both the Courts below have held that it was not.

(2.) I am not prepared to go as far as to say that because an agriculturist has a shed in or near his field he cannot get exemption under Section 60(1)(c) for the house in which he ordinarily resides, unless he proves that he has tethered some cattle in the house or keeps agricultural implements there. An agriculturist, like every person, must have a house in which to live; and the fact that he has a shed in or near his field in which he may keep some implements and perhaps spend an hour, or two in the middle of the day while engaged in agricultural operations, would not disenable him from retaining possession of the house in which he ordinarily resides, provided that that house is not on a scale inappropriate to an agriculturist.

(3.) THE appellants complain that they were not given an opportunity of adducing evidence; and one of the grounds of appeal in the lower appellate Court was to that effect. They do not however seem to have pressed that point in appeal. The " B " diary of the trial Court does not indicate that the appellants were precluded from letting in evidence; and the remark of the lower appellate Court that" no oral evidence was adduced on either side " does not indicate that the appellants were not allowed to adduce evidence.