RAJA OF SIVAGANGA, SOLE HEREDITARY TRUSTEE OF THE SIVAGANGA DEVASTHANAM BY AGENT S. JAYARAMA IYER Vs. STATE OF MADRAS BY SECRETARY, REVENUE DEPARTMENT AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN anticipation of the abolition of the zamindari estates and other estates as defined by Madras Act I of 1908 the Madras Legislature enacted the Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947 (XXX of 1947) to relieve immediately the tenants in the estates of the burden of what were considered to be the excessive rents they were then paying the landlords. Subsequently the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (XXVI of 1948) provided for the abolition of the estates themselves and for bringing those areas under the ryotwari system. A number of religious, educational and charitable institutions, 1 to which we shall hereafter refer comprehensively as institutions or religious institutions, owned such estates, which had been granted in in am for the upkeep and main I tenance of these institutions. Special provisions were made in both the Acts to main I tain what was considered by the Legislature to be a just balance between the interests 1 of such public institutions and those of the tenants in the estates they owned. While 1 the interests of the tenants were safeguarded on the same lines as those of the tenants in other types of estates, a more favourable treatment was accorded to the institutions, which owned inam estates, than to the landholders of the other abolished ' estates, obviously to provide against any undue diminution of the annual income which the institutions had been entitled to get from those inam estates before these Tenancy Laws were enacted. Section 5 of the Rent Reduction Act and Section 38 of the Abolition Act were amongst such legislative provisions. It is enough to note at this stage that these provisions were not identical in their scope. Section 5 of the Rent Reduction Act, which applied also to estates other than inam estates was in force till the estates were notified and taken over by the Government under the Abolition Act. Section 38 of the Abolition Act which was confined to inam estates came into play after the estates vested in the Government.

(2.) THE common question that arises for determination in this batch of applications preferred under Article 226 of the Constitution, for the issue of a writ of mandamus in each case to the Government to discharge their statutory obligations, is, what is the scope of Section 38 of the Abolition Act and what is it that is payable to the institutions thereunder.

(3.) SECTION 5 of the Rent Reduction Act was amended by Madras Act XXIX of 1956, Section 1(2) of which directed that the amended Section 5 should be deemed to have come into force on 7th January, 1948, when the Rent Reduction Act itself came into force. In view of that it may not be necessary to examine the difference between the scope of Section 5 as it was originally enacted, and that of Section 5 as it was amended. Section 5 as it now stands runs: