SRI VYRICHERLA CHANDRAMANI PATTAMAHADEVI ZAMINDARINI OF CHEMUDU ESTATE Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL REPRESENTED BY ITS COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question which arises in this second appeal is whether land covered by a casuarina plantation is agricultural land for purposes of assessment to property tax under Section 81, Clauses (3) and (4) of the Madras District Municipalities Act.

(2.) The facts so far as they are necessary are that the appellant is the owner of a field measuring 11 acres within the Vizagapatam municipal limits. During the relevant period six acres were used as pasture and were assessed accordingly under Section 81(4)(a) of the Act; the remaining five acres were covered by casuarina trees and, rejecting the appellant's claim to their assessment as agricultural land, were assessed under Section 81(3). An appeal was carried without success to the municipal council, and eventually a suit was filed in the District Munsiff's Court. The plaintiff was unsuccessful in the suit and also in the lower appellate Court. As already stated, the only point taken is that for purposes of Section 81 of the District Municipalities Act the word agriculture must be construed in its widest sense so as to include not only the cultivation of food crops but also the cultivation of garden crops, trees, bushes and flowers.

(3.) The two decisions of this Court which first require notice are Pavadai Pathan v. Ramaswami Chetty and Chandrasekhara Bharathi Swamigal V/s. Duraiswami Naidu . In the first of these cases it was held that a lease of land for growing casuarina trees was a lease for an agricultural purpose within the meaning of Section 117 of the Transfer of Property Act. The Transfer of Property Act contains no definition of the word "agriculture," and the learned Judges held that it connoted not only tilling the soil for raising food products but included the cultivation of the soil for any useful purpose. The second of these decisions related to the word " agriculture " as used in the Madras Estates Land Act, and it was held in that case-that growing casuarina trees, that is trees for fuel, is not an agricultural purpose so as to make a person who holds the land for that purpose a ryot within the meaning of the Madras Estates Land Act. In the Madras Estates Land Act, the word " agriculture" is thus defined: