VEDURUVADA VENKANNA Vs. RECEIVER, MEDUR AND NIDADAVOLE ESTATES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These six second appeals raise the question as to the proper rate of money rent into which the rent in paddy grain produce, which has been till now paid by certain tenants in the village of Mondur in the Nidadavole and Medur Estates, should be commuted. The suits out of which these second appeals have arisen were brought by the tenants for such commutation of the grain rents into money rents. In their plaints they were prepared to pay money rents according to the quality of the lands from Rs. 4-4-0 to Rs. 7-8-0 per acre. The entire area in each holding had always been treated as consisting of wet lands in the accounts from fasli 1303. When grain rents were being received by the landlord, the tenants seem to have been in the habit of letting some fraction of the entire area in some of the holdings lie fallow or to be cultivated with dry produce. The zemindar used to receive : a share of the wet produce raised from the cultivated wet area. Although the records do not show whether the area in which wet crops were not cultivated was left wholly fallow or whether dry crops were raised on the said area (or most of that area), for which some rent in money was paid to the zemindar, the learned Vakil for the plaintiffs (appellants) represented to us that at least some portion of the area not cultivated with wet crops used to be cultivated with dry crops and money rents paid to zemindar by the tenants.

(2.) As regards the question of commutation into money rents, Section 40 of the Madras- Estates Land Act deals with the principles which ought to guide the Courts in fixing the money rents in holdings which were paying grain rents. Section 40, Sub-section 3, says : In making the determination the Collector shall have due regard to each of the following considerations : (a) The average value of the rent actually accrued, due to the landholder during the preceding ten years other than the years which the Local Government may notify to be or to have been famine years in respect of any local area or, if the value for such period cannot be ascertained, during any shorter period for which evidence may be available, excluding famine years : (b) the money rent payable by occupancy ryots for land of a similar description and with similar advantages in the same village or neighbouring villages : and (c) improvements effected by the landholder or the ryot in respect of the holding, and the rules laid down in Section 32.

(3.) In the present case the consideration referred to in Clause (e) might be ignored as there is no evidence that improvements wore effected either by the landholder or the ryot in respect of the holdings in dispute. Sub-section 3, again, does not state that the three considerations (a), (b) and (c) are the only considerations which the Collector has to , bear in mind before determining what the fair money rate to be fixed by him should amount to. Nor does it say that the considerations in a particular Clause (a), (b), or (c), should be given more weight than in the other two, A general direction that "due regard should be given to each of the following considerations" is all that appears in the section. In the present case I am unable to say that such due regard has not been given to the considerations mentioned in Sub-section 3.