SURYAJIRAO GANPATRAO NAIK NIMBALKAR JAHAGIRDAR Vs. SHIVAKACHARU KUMBHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a second appeal from the decision of. the District judge of Jalgaon. The dispute relates to the right of the landlord, who is also an inamdar of the town of Bhusawal, to demand enhanced rent from the defendants who are permanent, tenants of the demised property measuring over 10,000 square yards in that town. The rent was recovered from the defendants since 1865 at an uniform rate of Rs. 70 per year with local fund cess in proportion to the assessment fixed on the property. The landlord has now by notice sought to increase the rent, and on refusal to pay he has instituted this action. The Courts below have held that the defendants would have been liable to pay rent if the landlord had established his claim either by virtue of an agreement or usage, and that, in the absence of such evidence, they dismissed the claim. At the same time the lower appellate Court held that if the landlord is entitled to claim rent on the basis of what is just and reasonable, that rent would be Rs. 250 a year.

(2.) THE defendants' claim to permanency of tenure, by reason of the presumption under Section 83 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code, has not been challenged in this appeal by the plaintiff-landlord. But it is urged that the onus of proof should be on the tenants to establish that fixity of rent attaches to their tenure, that in the absence of any such proof the landlord is entitled to rent at the market rate prevailing in the locality, and that, alternatively, if the burden were cast on the landlord to establish his right to enhance rent, he is entitled, in the absence of proof of agreement or usage, to claim such rent as is just and reasonable.

(3.) THE reason underlying the rule of ejusdem generis is to carry out as far as practicable the primary object of the legislature in the construction of a statute by reference to the specific words used, to indicate the intention. If specific words or phrases were used, followed by the most comprehensive or largest term, the Court may, if the intention is clear in the construction of the widest expression, restrict its operation to carry out the primary object. In other words, the Court will control the meaning of the largest term by reference to the context. That principle would apply only when the specific words are of the same kind. Here the specific words used are "agreement or usage". It is not possible to say that they are of the same genus. THEy imply different ideas and different rural conception. If it were necessary to limit the application of the phrase "or otherwise", I find it difficult to conceive of any ideas similar in import to that connoted by the specific words in the saving clause.