NARAYANAN NAMBUDRIPAD Vs. BEEPATTUMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE three appeals, filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent, all raise the same question, namely, whether in a case where rent is payable in kind and the landlord is suing to enforce payment he is entitled to take the market price ruling on the date of the institution of the suit or whether he must accept the price ruling on the date when the produce should have been delivered to him.

(2.) UNDER the leases in suit the rents were payable in terms of paddy and were to be delivered at the granary of the landlord on the due date. The District Munsiff held that the landlord was entitled to the market price ruling on the dates when proceedings were instituted. On appeal by the tenants the Subordinate Judge held that the prices to be taken were those ruling when the rents fell due and with this view Chandrasekhara Aiyar, J., in second appeal agreed. These appeals -are from his judgment. The appeals have been heard together and can be dealt, with in one judgment.

(3.) THE first decision given was in Parameswaran Nambudripad alias Narayanan Thrathar Nambudripad v. Subramania Aiyar, (1944) 2 M.L.J. 84 which was a second appeal heard by Horwill, J. The main question there was whether Section 51(2) of the Malabar Tenancy Act applied where the rent was payable in kind. It was held that it did not apply. It is accepted by both sides here that the decision on this question is correct. The learned Judge went on to state that where rent has to be paid in kind at a particular place and the tenant does not deliver the paddy, the landlord is entitled to its value according to the market price at the time of " the breach". The learned Judge gave a decision to the same effect in Achutan Nayar v. : AIR1945Mad438 and again in the unreported case of Ammalu Amma v. Kandan Narayanan Nambudripad S.A. Nos. 941 and 942 of 1944. The same view was taken by Somayya, J., in P.P.V. Kunhiraman v. : AIR1945Mad357 and in the unreported case of Kanthaswimi Pillai v. Narayanan Nambudripad S.A. No. 683 of 1944. In Meghji Gopalji Salt v. A.S. Kalyani Ammal A.A.A.O. No. 302 of 1944 also unreported, Bell, J., agreed. The learned Judge whose judgment is now under appeal had expressed the same opinion in Kunhachumma v. Manavedan alias Valia Thirumalpad7.