NARAYAN Vs. BHAGIRATH SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a second appeal filed by the defendants in a suit for recovery of arrears of rent which has been concurrently decreed against them by both the courts below. The contention of the learned counsel for the appellants is that in arriving at the impugned decision the courts below completely ignored the provisions of secs. 3 and 4 of the Rajasthan Agricultural Rents Control Act, 1954 as well as secs. 98 and 101 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act. It was also urged that the suit suffered from multifariousness, mis-joinder of parties, misjoinder of cause of action as well as nonjoinder of necessary parties to the suit. It was also stated that the lower courts acted illegally in giving a joint decree against all the defendant appellants whose liabilities were not joint and several. We have carefully examined the provisions of law referred to above. The present suit was admittedly instituted on the basis of two agreements. Ex. P. 1 and Ex. P. 2 said to have been executed in Svt. 1979 between the fathers of the appellants and Ganga Singh the landholder's grandfather of the respondent whereby half the village was given on a Ijara under each agreement to the fathers of the defendants respectively for a sum of Rs. 1375/- per annum. The execution of these agreements and the status of the parties as legal representatives of the executants has not been denied, but the contention is that in view of the provisions of secs. 3 and 4 of the Rajasthan Agricultural Rents Control Act. the respondents were not entitled to get more than double of the Land Revenue. We have looked into these provisions. Sec. 4 of the Act deals only With cases in which kind rents are to be converted into cash. Evidently the present case is not of this nature and the learned counsel for the appellants, therefore, concentrated his arguments on the provisions of sec. 3 of the Act. Sec. 3 reads as below: - "notwithstanding any custom, usage or practice to the contrary or anything contained in any law, enactment, rule, decree, order, agreement, or instrument, no land-holder shall recover or be deemed entitled to recover as cash rent for any holding in an area to which this Act for the time being applies an amount exceeding twice the land revenue assessed on such holding or the cash rent fixed under sec. 4 of this Act. " THIS section clearly means that where the land revenue has been fixed, the maximum rent which a land-holder can realise from his tenant inspite of an agreement etc. to the contrary could not exceed twice the land revenue assessed on such holdings. In the present case it has been frankly admitted at the bar that no land revenue has so far been fixed on this land. It, therefore, follows that the provisions of this section also do not apply. In the alternative it was urged that the respondent's suit was hit by the provisions of secs. 98 to 101 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act. We have examined the law contained in these sections as well. These are also not applicable to the present suit for the selfsame reason viz. , that the land revenue payable by the land-holder has not yet been admittedly assessed on this holding. In the circumstances, the plaintiff rightly instituted the suit on the basis of the agreements referred to above. As regards multifariousness, non-joinder of the parties, it is significant to observe that this point was never raised in their written statement by the appellants. Nevertheless, we examined this controversy ourselves. The documents Ex. P. l and Ex. P. 2 were executed by the fathers of the defendant-applicants and could be enforced against them as their legal representatives. There is no suggestion in the pleadings that besides the defendants, there were other persons also who could have been impleaded in the suit, either as legal representatives of the executants or in some other capacity. THIS contention of the learned counsel for the parties also fails. Similarly there is nothing on the record to suggest that the fathers of the defendants who executed the agreements Ex. P. 1, Ex. P. 2 were given specific areas on Ijara in the village. It cannot, therefore, be said that the liabilities of the appellants were restricted to any specific portion given on Ijara to them respectively. It may again be pointed out that this point was never raised by the defendants in their written statements, nor was it pressed before any of the lower courts. It is significant to observe that the amounts deposited by the defendants in the Tehsil also do not show that the appellants had not considered the whole village as one. In our opinion, all the contentions raised by the learned counsel fail. Both the courts below after carefully examining the merits of the case rightly decreed the suit, and we do not find any grounds to interfere with the same. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal with costs. .