LAWS(PVC)-1913-12-15

K K NARAYANAN NAMBUDRIPAD Vs. MKKRISHNA PATTER

Decided On December 19, 1913
K K NARAYANAN NAMBUDRIPAD Appellant
V/S
MKKRISHNA PATTER Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Kanom mortgagee while he is also a lessee (See S.A. 786 of 1912) has as lessee even higher rights than an ordinary lessee (Vasudevan Nambudripad v. Valia Chathu Achan (1896) I.L.R. 24 M. 47 (F.B).

(2.) Following second appeal 786 of 1912 I would hold that paddy plants raised by a Kanom mortgagee judgment-debtor are improvements and if the respondents (mortgagee-judgment- debtors) had only the rights given them by the Malabar Improvements Act, they would be entitled to claim 3/4 of the value of the plants if they were " sold by public auction to be cut and carried away."

(3.) But the principle embodied in Section 108 Clause (i) of the Transfer of Property Act which principle so far as my knowledge goes is also the common law of this country, allows to a lessee whose lease of uncertain duration determines by any means except the fault of the lessee, a right to carry away all the crops planted or sown by him. In the present case the decree sought to be executed does not fix a certain date for the termination of the Kanom lease but merely allows the mortgagor-decree-holder to deposit the decree amount on any date between 23rd March and 23rd September 1909, and thus to put an end to the lease on that uncertain day between 23rd March and 23rd September. The lease thus became by the decree a lease of uncertain duration and the mortgagee-lessee was therefore entitled to reap the harvest raised by him and to appropriate the entire crops raised by him.