JAI RAM Vs. BHAGAT RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff who is the appellant before us instituted a suit in the court of the City Judge at Jammu for eviction of the defendant from a building and also for arrear of rent. One of the main contentions of the defendant was that the suit was incompetent as it was triable only by a revenue court and not by a civil court. The court of first instance decreed the suit. On appeal the District Judge at Jammu reversed the decree of the trial court holding that the suit is triable by a revenue court and not by a civil court and on that ground returned the plaint for presentation to the appropriate revenue court. The plaintiff has now come up in appeal against the judgment of the learned District Judge.

(2.) IT is necessary to state a few salient facts in order to bring clearly to the fore the point for decision in this appeal. The defendant had taken on lease an agricultural land from the plaintiff on 15th Katik 2007 (October 1954). The lease deed expressly excluded from its purview the suit building and certain shops adjacent to it. At the time of the agricultural lease which is Exhibit PB the suit building was held on lease by a stranger, Shiv Ram from the plaintiff. Shiv Rams lease deed is Ex. PA of July 1953. After Shiv Ram vacated the suit building, it was granted on lease to the defendant under a separate lease deed Ex. PC dated 22 -12 -55. This lease reserved a monthly rent of Rs. 7 and was for a stipulated period of time. It also provided that if rent was kept in arrear, the plaintiff landlord will be entitled to evict the defendant -tenant. The defendant kept rent in arrear for about four years, although in the present suit the claim for arrear of rent is confined to only three years before suit. The contention of the defendant before the learned District Judge as also Vs - before us has been that he is not liable to be ejected Bhagat Ram because the subject -matter of the lease, Ex. PC dated 22 -12 -1955, is land within the meaning of the definition in S. 2 (1) of the Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act. This definition runs as follows: -

(3.) IN the present case the suit building was expressly let out for residential purpose. The lease deed executed by the defendant unmistakably says so. There is therefore no question for having let the land for agricultural purpose or for purpose subservient to agriculture or for pasture. When there is an express letting, the question of occupation of the land in some other manner and for some other purpose cannot normally arise for consideration. In our opinion the question of the land being occupied for agricultural purpose can reasonably arise only when there is no express letting of that land for a specified purpose, whether it be agricultural or otherwise. Furthermore, the definition opens with the words land means land which is not occupied as the site of any building in a town or village.  The suit lease deed admittedly relates to a building and nothing else. As a building cannot exist apart from the site on which it is erected, we can take it that the suit lease deed is of a building and the site on which it stands. This means that the land which is the subject matter of the lease is one occupied as the site of a building. If this is so, it is in terms excluded from the operation of the definition of land in S. 2 (1) of the Tenancy Act. It also seems to us that when the defendant himself has taken the building on lease exclusively for residential purpose, it is not open to him to treat it as property occupied for agricultural purpose.