SRI RAJA RAJESWARI AMBAL OF SRI DATTATREYA MANDIRAM THROUGH ITS AGENT K. KRISHNA RAO Vs. DISTRICT BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two appeals against the order of the Estates Abolition Tribunal, Madurai, raise a common question for consideration.

(2.) TWO villages Sivandanur and Vallam, which were originally owned or formed part of the Zamin Estate of Chookampatti were notified and taken over by the Government under the Estates Abolition Act. The advance compensations amounting to Rs. 10, 980 and Rs. 7,605 have been deposited for these two villages respectively before the Abolition Tribunal. The District Board of Tirunelveli, as the manager of a Choultry at Courtallam, laid claim to these compensation amounts as a creditor and their right was disputed by the respresentatives -in -title of the purchasers of these two villages, the purchases having taken place as far back as 1868. The Tribunal has upheld the claim of the District Board to rank as a creditor as regards the compensation amounts and has apportioned the amount in deposit between the claimant and the objector. It is the correctness of the basis on which this apportionment has been effected by the Tribunal that is in controversy in the appeals before us.

(3.) THIS , therefore, would prima facie make out that the purchases were, as it were subject to a charge or encumbrance in favour of the choultry for the payment of the amount mentioned against each village. The Tribunal held that the Choultry were creditors but computed the amount due to the institution as 1150/1896 of the compensation amount in the case of Vallam and 650/1090 in the case of Sivandanur. This fraction was arrived at by taking the net income from the villages in question as found in the sale proclamation as the donominator and the amount charged on this income as the numerator. The Tribunal held that this represented the relative proportion of the interests of the purchaser and of the charge -holder in the villages taken as a whole in 1868 and considered that this would be the most equitable manner in which these interests should share in the compensation in deposit. It is against the apportionment in this manner that the present appeals have been filed by the owners of these two villages.