PUCHAKAYALA JAGANNAIKULU Vs. MANAGER OF NANDIGAM ESTATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants are defendants, enants of an estate of which plaintiff is the Court of Wards Manager. The question is whether defendants are bound to pay plaintiff the portion of the Road cess, for which they are responsible under Section 73, Local Boards Act (V of 1884 amended by VI of 1900) or can and should pay a mortgagee under Exhibit I, The Lower Appellate Court has held that they must pay plaintiff with reference to the terms of both Exhibit J and Section 73.

(2.) The material portions of Section 73 provide that (1) every land-holder must pay the tax (except that leviable on water tax, which is hot in question here) directly to Government (2) the land-holder can recover a specified portion of the tax from " any person, holding lands with or without right of occupancy as an intermediate landholder on an undertenure created, continued or recognised by the landholder," (3) the intermediate land-holder can recover from the tenant s occupancy land half the tax payable by the landholder in respect of that land.

(3.) Some attempt was made to argue* that the mortgagee under Exhibit I, was a transferee of the title, to the mortgaged property and therefore became the landholder during the term of the mortgage. But this does not appear to have been put forward in the Lower Courts. The property is part of a permanently settled Zamindari, and it is not alleged that it has been separately registered. In Exhibit I, moreover the mortgagor, plaintiff s predecessor, expressly undertook to continue the payment of peishkush. In these circumstances attention may be confined to the plea that the mortgagee is an intermediate landholder.