KOYASAN KOYA HAJI Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL REPRESENTED BY THE COLLECTOR OF MALABAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the plaintiff was in occupation of some land, cultivating it by a tenant. Government claimed that it was their land, and on the 17 of April 1919 they sent her a notice to quit under Section 6 of the Land Encroachment Act, III of 1905. Nothing happened for a time. In May 1919 the plaintiff put in a petition for a review of this notice to the Deputy Collector. On the 18 of September 1919 the Deputy Collector dismissed the review petition. On the 2 October, 1919 an order which amounted practically to a notice to quit went to the plaintiff. On the 22 December, 1919 the plaintiff filed the present suit for vindicating her alleged rights of ownership in the Civil Court.

(2.) The Courts below have declared the suit to be barred by limitation by reason of Section 14 of the Act which says: Nothing contained in this Act shall be held to prevent persons deeming themselves aggrieved "by any proceedings under this Act except as herein provided from applying to the Civil Courts for redress. (That is what this woman has done.) Provided that the Civil Court shall not take cognizance of any suit instituted by such persons for any such cause of action unless Such suit shall be instituted within six months from the time at which the cause of action arose.

(3.) Then follow two explanations: The cause of action shall be deemed to have arisen (a) in respect of any assessment or penalty. (that is a provision under another section which I have not dealt with) on the date on which such assessment or penalty was levied; (b) in respect of eviction or forfeiture, on the date of eviction or forfeiture. Section 6 contains the machinery for eviction and it is provided that a notice shall be served on the person in occupation requiring him to vacate the land and, if such notice is not obeyed, by removing or deputing a subordinate to remove any person who may refuse to vacate the same. How in the teeth of that provision anybody can venture to argue that a person who has had notice under Section 6 and in spite of it remains in undisturbed possession has been evicted from the land, I cannot understand, and I do not think it can fairly be said that any judgment of this Court has gone that length. But the case is put in another and a slightly, I will not say, more plausible, but a slightly less inarguable, way. It is said that the illustrations contained in the explanation to Section 14 of the Act are not exhaustive and that a person may be aggrieved by proceedings under this Act when those proceedings do not amount to an assessment, penalty, eviction or forfeiture. Assuming that argument to be sound, the plaintiff in this case put forward as the thing which she deemed herself to be aggrieved by, not the notice at all which might have been a mere brutum fulmen which might have resulted in nothing whatever in the future, but a tangible definite order of the Deputy Collector received by her on the 2 October, 1919 ordering her to quit. How it can be said that the plaintiff must be deemed to be aggrieved by the earliest stage of the proceedings when she did not choose to be aggrieved by it, I cannot appreciate. It is argued that though she says she was not aggrieved by the notice, she obviously was aggrieved by it, because she petitioned the Deputy Collector to withdraw it or to review it. It seems to me that, assuming that to be so, it does not in the least preclude her from saying, "Well, if I was aggrieved by the notice, in the sense that I put in a petition against it, that is not what I am questioning in this suit here. I am aggrieved and for the purpose of this suit I am solely aggrieved by the order of the Deputy Collector of the 2 October, 1919". How anybody can deny her the right to elect as to which stage of the proceedings she should complain of, passes my comprehension. In my judgment, the Full Bench decision in The Secretary of State for India V/s. Assan (1816) I.L.R. 39 Mad. 725 F.B. has no bearing on this point whatever; because there was no question as to when there had been an infringement of the plaintiff's right; and the plaintiff had a continuous chain of proceedings which began by his actually paying money out of his pocket in answer to a demand. To my mind, the Full Bench decision has no bearing on this point whatever.