KASHINATH RAMCHANDRA POTNIS Vs. VINAYAK GANGADHAR BHAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question that we have to decide in this case is whether the income derived from tenants by an Inamdar which is to a certain extent attributable to the fact that he is the assignee of Government revenue and therefore does not have to pay over a portion of that income to Government but may keep it for himself, can be taken into consideration in estimating whether or not he earns his livelihood wholly or principally by agriculture and therefore is an agriculturist within the meaning of the Dekkhan Agriculturists Relief Act.

(2.) The answer to the question depends upon what force is to be attributed to explanation (b) of the definition in Section 2. That explanation says -an assignee of Government assessment or a mortgagee is not as such an agriculturist within this definition."

(3.) Now, we think, it is clear that if the object of that explanation was to exclude the consideration of the income of a mortgagee as such it must also have been the intention to exclude the consideration of the income of an assignee of Government as such. We have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the object of the legislature was to exclude mortgagees, to the extent to which their income is derived from their rights as mortgagees, from claiming the special benefit of the Act, and therefore we are forced to the conclusion that the legislature also intended to exclude assignees of Government assessment in that capacity from claiming the benefit of the Act.