DIRGAJ DEO Vs. KALI CHARAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for a certificate for leave to appeal to His Majesty in Council. The dispute arises in certain proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act, and there are in all 10 cases, separate amounts being awarded in each case. The aggregate amount awarded is well under Rs. 10,000. The value then of the subject matter of the suit in the Court of first instance is under Rs. 10,000, and the value on appeal to His Majesty in Council is also under that sum. The decree sought to be appealed against is one of affirmance.

(2.) In these circumstances a certificate cannot prima facie be properly granted, having regard to Section 596 of the Civil P. C.. But it is contended that the decree involves indirectly a question respecting property over Rs. 10,000 in, value. The decree, however, only directly dealt with the question of apportionment of the compensation money, amounting to about Rs. 3,660. The decree only dealt with the land taken in one mauza, Garhwah. The Subordinate Judge upheld the finding of the Collector, and this Court affirmed the Subordinate Judge.

(3.) It is now urged that this decision involved the question of title to 43 mauzas, the aggregrate value of which is over 10 lakhs of rupees, and that the decision amounts to res judicata upon this question. But the Court was only deciding how the compensation money, far below Rs. 10,000 in value, was to be apportioned and any reference in the judgment to the 43 mauzas was incidental only. The question of title to these 43 mauzas does not appear to have been put in issue and tried out. The necessary parties were probably not before the Collector, nor would he have had jurisdiction to try it. I adopt the view stated by Pontifex, J., in Nobodeep Chunder Chowdhry V/s. Brojendro Lall Roy (1881) I.L.R. 7 Calc. 406, 409, that a decision of the Court with respect to the apportionment of compensation money under the Land Acquisition. Act should not be treated as res judicata affecting other parts of the claimant's property held under the same title. The same view was taken in Mahadevi V/s. Neelamani (1896) I.L.R. 20 Mad. 269. In the case of Ram Chunder Singh V/s. Madho Kumari (1885) I.L.R. 12 Calc. 484 it looks from the report as if the previous decision, which was treated as res judicata, was pronounced, not in a proceeding under the Land Acquisition Act, but in an independent suit to obtain the Rs. 15,125 odd compensation money which had been deposited in the Government Treasury, and that in that suit the question of title was directly and substantially in issue between the parties. We do not think that the present decree, against which it is sought to appeal to the Privy Council, and which deals only with the apportionment of certain compensation money, can be said within the meaning of Section 596 to involve indirectly a question as to the title to the 43 mauzas and to be res judicata as regards that title, which is the proposition for which the petitioner contends. It is always open to their Lordships of the Judicial Committee to grant special leave to appeal, if they think the case a proper one for such leave being granted.