POTHULA SATTIRAJU Vs. POLISETTI VENKATARATNAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition is preferred against a Judgment in appeal dismissing a suit as one of which the Civil Courts have no jurisdiction with reference to the terms of Secs.189 and 213 of the Madras Estates Land Act.

(2.) The petitioner (plaintiff) had a decree under a mortgage binding lands in an estate. Defendants 3, 4 and 5 represented the mortgagors owning the kudivaram in the land. The first defendant was the zamindar. In 1929 the first defendant obtained an ex parte decree against defendants 3 to 5 for water cess alleged to be due on their land which was an inam. Under the decree a sale was held and a portion of the land was purchased in revenue sale by the second defendant. The plaintiff came to know of the sale and deposited the amount due thereunder which was a little over Rs. 1,300 and got the sale set aside. This was on 17 January, 1930. On 17 January, 1933, he filed the present suit in the District Munsif's Court in which he alleged a fraudulent conspiracy between the first defendant (the landholder) and defendants 3 to 5 (the tenants) whereby a decree was obtained for an amount not due and the land was sold to the second defendant, a friend of the parties. Plaintiff therefore claimed the right to get back from the first defendant and from the defendants 3 to 5 the amount which he was obliged to pay to get the sale set aside. Paragraph 12 of the plaint after setting out this claim based on fraud also says that if the amount for which the decree was passed was really due, it was due from defendants 3 to 5 and that as they defaulted with the result that part of the plaintiff's hypotheca was sold, the plaintiff was obliged to deposit the amount due and defendants 3 to 5 are bound in law to make good the said sum with interest. The trial Court treated the suit as one purely for damages for a fraudulent conspiracy carried out under colour of a proceeding under the Estates Land Act and applying Section 213 held that the suit was one cognizable only by a Revenue Court. The lower appellate Court did point out that there was an alternative claim against defendants 3 to 5 under Section 69 of the Contract Act. Nevertheless, it dismissed the appeal and confirmed the dismissal of the suit.

(3.) Now in so far as the suit was one for damages or compensation flowing from the tortious act of the defendants in conspiring to bring about an improper sale under colour of the Estates Land Act, it seems to me quite clear that Section 213 applies. It is true that in the case reported at Rajah of Vizianagaram v. Narasimharaju (1916) 3 L.W. 517 there was a difference of opinion between the two learned Judges on the question whether Section 213 of the Estates Land Act has any application to a suit for damages brought by a person who is not a tenant suing his landlord. With all respect to the learned Judge who held otherwise, it seems to me clear that Section 213. in terms gives a right of suit before the Collector to any person deeming himself aggrieved by any proceedings taken under colour of this Act and that such a suit would lie at the instance not merely of the registered pattadar or other person actually, impleaded as the defaulter in the original proceedings but would apply to a suit brought at the instance of any other person coming within the category of those who under Section 131 have a right to set aside the sale on deposit of the amount due. The Act contemplates proceedings against the registered pattadar but gives to other persons having an interest in the land a right to intervene and pay any amount which may be due and in a very large number of cases under this Act the registered pattadar is not in fact the person who pays the rent. It must have been the intention of the Legislature in using the wide term "any person aggrieved" to give the remedy under Section 213 to any person who had any interest in the land on which the arrear was claimed.