JAMMALAMADAKA SUBBARAYUDU Vs. IDUPUGANTI RAMASWAMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The point for decision in this case is whether the exception to Section 8 of the Madras Estates Land Act applies to the surrender of the Kudivtiram right by a tenant to his landlord, leading to the result that the land ceases to be part of the estate. The unhappy wording of Secs.8 and 6 of the Act makes the question a very difficult one to settle, and Benches of this Court have in consequence taken varying views on the meaning of the exception.

(2.) The wording of the S. as it stands barely makes sense. A captious critic might contend that "shall cease to be part of the estate" means "shall cease to be an mam or the inamdar's property at all" which is absurd. It also seems absurd to speak of the acquisition by an inamdar of the kudharam interest "before... the commencement of this Act" resulting in the land ceasing to be part of the estate, when ex hypothesi the Act and therefore the definition of estate" under it were non-existent at the time of the acquisition. And this anomaly applies to the land in this case since the surrender was in 1888. I presume the language is meant to imply in a case of this kind that the land does not form part of the Estate and therefore never was, and never can be, within the operation of the Act.

(3.) The real point, however, is whether such a surrender falls within the terns "acquired" in the exception. It is argued on one side that "acquired" is confined to the modes of passing of the kudivaram right from the ryot to the landholder mentioned in the section (section 8), to which the exception is appended, that is, "transfer, succession or otherwise." It is contended on the other side that the phrase "or otherwise" will include a case of surrender, and that, even if it does not, the language used in Section 66(2) implies that such a surrender is a method by which the landholder acquires an occupancy right with such effect that he can pass it on to a ryot, To this it is answered that "or otherwise" can only import a species of passing of the kudiaram right ejusdem generis with transfer or succession, and that the position of the phrase, "surrendered or abandoned" in Section 6(2), in juxtaposition to "comes into the possession of the landholder," seems to imply that by surrender or abandonment the kudivaram right does not come into the possession of a landholder but remains suspended in the air, until another ryot is admitted to the land, and that therefore these terms cannot be methods of acquisition of that right by an inamdar.