MARUTHIA SUBRAHMANYAM Vs. NIVARTHI LAKSHMI NARAYANAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE only point for determination in this petition is whether the lower Court went wrong in law in taking the year before filing the plaint to be the revenue or agricultural year 1945 -1946, and whether it should have taken it to mean a calendar year, as contended by the learned Counsel for the petitioner, relying on a clause in the General Clauses Act. I am of opinion that the lower Court did not go wrong in law. The General Clauses Act is, as its very name implies, a general Act subject to the particular context. If there is nothing else to guide the Court in the particular case, regarding the year, then the year has to be taken as a calendar year. In the present case, we are, admittedly concerned, with the income from the land, and it is well known that regarding land the annual income is understood usually to be the income from the revenue year or cultivation year, unless the parties have contracted otherwise, or unless there is something in the context to show that anything different was meant. So too, there is the financial year, the Income Tax year, and several other years, apart from the calendar year, recognised for various purposes, in spite of the General Clauses Act and the provision referred to by the learned Counsel for the petitioner. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has relied on the ruling in Ghasiram v. Hargovind, I.L.R. (1906) All. 411 and has contended that the lower Court may at least be directed to find out the income from the suit lands for a calendar year, i.e., for 365 days, before the date of the filing of the plaint, in order to see whether the lower Court will have jurisdiction or not to try the suit. In the view I take, it is unnecessary to do so, since I am convinced that, ordinarily, in matters relating to land, in this part of the country, the revenue year or the agricultural year is taken for the purpose of income, whatever the case may be in Allahabad and the United Provinces.

(2.) THE next point urged by the learned Counsel for the petitioner was that the lower Court went wrong in estimating the income of even the revenue or agricultural year 1945 -46 at Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 3,000, and that it should have taken it to be far above Rs. 3,000, calculating from the evidence given by P. W. 2 regarding the yield from the lands and the prices of the crops. It is obvious that the estimate arrived at by the lower Court regarding the income in the revenue or agricultural year 1945 -46 was purely a question of fact having nothing to do with law, and will become an error in law only if the lower Court had no evidence at all to support its finding, and was merely acting on surmise. Here, it was obviously acting on evidence on record, and on inferences therefrom and not on mere surmise without any evidence. Therefore, this contention also must fail.

(3.) IN the end, therefore, the petition deserves to be and is dismissed, but, in the peculiar circumstances, without costs, as there is no direct decision stating that the year in this presidency regarding the income from agricultural land will mean the revenue or agricultural year, in the absence of any contract to the contrary or other circumstances compelling such inference.