ATMARAM Vs. MT. RADHA BAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A decree for the payment of Rs. 633, to the appellant Atmaram was passed on the 19th January 192L against the respondent Radha Bai as the legal representative of her deceased husband Baliram, who died about the year 1912. She inherited from him an occupancy field of 3 50 acres, a house said to be worth Rs. 500 and a kotha worth about Rs. 50, all in the same village, and probably also some moveable property. On an application for execution of the decree filed in January 1924 the house and kotha were attached. Of the various reasons put forward on behalf of Radha Bai for the contention that both buildings should be released from attachment we are now concerned with one only. That is, that they are exempt from attachment under Clause (c), Section 60 (1), Civil P. C, as she is an agriculturist and they belong to her and are occupied by her.

(2.) IT appears that Radha Bai has never cultivated the holding herself, but has sub-let it every year since her husband's death. She has no bullocks, having given away a pair she once owned to her son-in-law, but she seems to have two cows which she keeps in the kotha that was attached. She lives in the house. The learned District Judge has held that both buildings are exempt from attachment because Radha Bai is an agricultutist and does occupy them.

(3.) IT seems, however, on the same reasoning as that in Amolaksao v. Eknath [1920] 16 N.L.R. 89, that the house and kotha attached in this case must be regarded as occupied by Radha Bai as an agriculturist. The subleases she gives are not and cannot be for more than one year at a time, and even if she does in fact go on sub letting the land all her life, it can still be said that it is necessary for her to live in that house to look after the sub-letting of the holding, that is, for the purposes of agriculture. As a matter of fact the possibility, if not the probability, of her starting to cultivate the land herself is greater than that of the judgment-debtor in the case that has been mentioned.