G R ADIKESAVALU NAIDU Vs. CSBLAKSHMANA AYYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These revision petitions arise out of suits filed by the Shrotriemdar of Chintadripet for quit rent in respect of certain houses. The trial Judge gave a decree in plaintiff's favour and Full Bench of Small Causes Court dismissed the suits on the ground that defendants houses were exempt from payment of quit rent. The learned Chief Judge who wrote the judgment of the Full Bench fell into an error in thinking that the cowle of 1787 was to be read along with the cowle of 1 November 1734. The so-called cowle of 1734 was not really a cowle. It was a notification by the President and Governor of Port Saint George for the erection and building of a town in Chintadripet and it contained an invitation to people to come and settle there and the people who were asked to settle were weavers, spinners and others for the purpose of carrying on weaving industry. Some exemptions were made in the case of persons whose services were required for the temple in Chintadripet. In that cowle there were provisions for payment of certain fees to the Palayagars of Triplicane. In 1787, the Government gave a cowle to the plaintiff's ancestor. Under that cowle, the cowledar was authorized to collect a fee, on each house situated in the said pattah, of 2 panams per month and one panam on every hut as has hitherto been customary likewise on all shops erected there one panam each per month. The defendants houses or shops are in Chintadripet and the only question to be decided is whether they are liable to pay quit rent. Reliance was placed by the learned Judge upon Exhibit-B-which is a list of houses said to be exempt from payment of taxes. This is dated March 1821. It is an enclosure to a letter written by the then Collector to the Board of Revenue. Granting that this has something to do with the exemption of certain houses from payment of quit rent, it is difficult to see how the Collector could by any act of his vary the terms of the cowle of 1787. No document was produced to show that the Government of Madras or the Board of Revenue modified the cowle of 1787 so as to exempt certain houses from payment of quit rent. It may be, as contended by Mr. Muthukrishna Ayyar, that the Shtrotriemdar did not collect quit rent for a number of years and the Collector referred to that in the Memorandum-B. Whatever that may be, we are quite satisfied that Ex-B cannot control the provisions of the recitals in Ex.-C the cowle of 1787. The cowle of 1734 is not part and parcel of the cowle of 1787 and cannot therefore be read into the latter. The Full Bench of Small Causes Court committed material irregularity in reading the cowle of 1734 into the cowle of 1787.

(2.) The next point that has to be considered is whether the defendants houses were exempt from payment by reason of the Shrotriemdar not having collected quit rent for a number of years. Mr. Subbaraya Ayyar who appears for the respondents, contends that, inasmuch as quit rent was not collected for over a century, it must be taken that the houses were exempt from payment of qnit rent. We are unable to accept this contention The mere fact that quit rent was not collected for over a century would not exempt them from the payment of quit rent. The cases relating to lost grants and the presumption of fact arising from non-payment of rent by tenants to a zamindar, have no application to the present case.

(3.) There is no other point in the case. and we therefore allow these petitions set aside the judgment of the Full Bench Court of Small Causes and restore that of the trial Judge with costs here and before the Full Bench.