SECRETARY TO GOVT APPELLANTS REVENUE DEPT GOVT Vs. RAJA VELUGOTI SARVAGANNA KUMARA KRISHNA YACHENDRA BAHADUR RAJAH OF VENKAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (Judgment of the Court was delivered by the Hon'ble the Chief Justice) 1. The State Government is the appellant. The appeal is directed against the judgment of A.D.V. Reddy, J., allowing the writ petition fiied by the respondents for the issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing the appellants herein to pay to the respondents the amounts lawfully due and payable to them under the provisions of Section 55(1) of the Estates Abolition Act, as shown in the schedule attached thereto, with Interest therein. Though, in the writ petition, the respondents claimed an amount of Rs. 7,40.575-07, they restricted their claim to a sum of Rs. 2.41,038-07 which was ascertained after an enquiry initially directed by this Court in its order dated 12-4-1971.

(2.) Mr. Challa Sitaramaiah appearing on behalf of the Govt. Pleader for the appellant assailed the judgment under appeal on the ground that the construction put upon Section 55(1) of the Estates Abolition Act is erroneous and not warranted on the language used in the provision. According to the learned Counsel, there is nothing in the language of section 55(1) which says that the decrees obtained by a landholder prior to the taking over of an estate cannot be executed by him and that such decrees also vest in the Government. The Venkataglri estate, with which we are now concerned was taken over on 7-9-1949 and an Estate Manager was appointed under Section 6 of the Act. Under Section 3 of the Act, with effect on and from the notified date, unless it is expressly provided in the Act, the entire estate stands transferred to the Government and vests in them free of all encumbrances and the Madras Revenue Recovery Act, 1864 the Madras Irrigation Cess Act, 1865 and all other enactments applicable to ryotwari areas shall apply to the Estate. Section 55 is a miscellaneous provision dealing with collection of arrears of rent which accrued before the notified date. It is not in dispute that the landholder, whose legal representatives are the present respondents, had filed suits for recovery of arrears of rent in revenue Courts and obtained decrees. He could not execute those decrees by reason of the fact that the estete was taken over by the Government and all his rights in the estate stood transferred to the Government. What Section 55(1), to the extent material, says is this;

(3.) Mr. Sitharamaiah contends that the expression "rent" in Section 55(1) does not take in decrees obtained by a landholder prior to the notified date and therefore, there is no bar to his executing the decrees and collecting the arrears of rent due under the decrees. Section 55(1) imposes a bar on the landholder to collect any rent due to him from any ryot before and is outsundirig on the notified date. The expression "rent", as sought tc be interpreted by the learned Counsel for tne appellant, is not susceptible of a narrow interpretation as to take only rents which may fall due from a ryot after the notified dare. It takes in collection of all rents which were due before the notified date and which may fall due subsequent to the notified date. The expression "rent" is not defined in the Estates Abolition Act, but it has to be understood in the sense it is defined in the Estates Abolition Act, as, under section 2(1), It is provided that all expressions defined in the Estates Land Act shall have the same respective meanings as in that Act with the modifications, f any, made by this Act. Section 3 (II) of the Estates Land Act defines the expression "rent" and, to the extent material, it reads; "rent" means whatever is lawfully payable in money or in kind or in both to a landholder by a ryot for the use or occupation of land for the purpose of agriculture and includes whatever is lawfully payable on account of water supplied by the landholder or taken without his permission for cultivation of land where tha charge for water has not been consolidated with the charge for the use or occupation of the land."