MT DEOKI KUAR Vs. SHIVA PROSAD SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the decision of a Judge of this Court sitting singly and arises out of an action for rent.

(2.) The question which fell to be decided throughout, in all Courts, was whether the defendant-tenant was entitled, and to what extent, to suspension of rent by reason of the fact that he had been dispossessed of two plots out of the holding, namely plots Nos. 787 and 788. There were materials before the Court from which it might have been held that these plots were held separately and not as part of one holding; but throughout, from the judgment of the Court of first instance to the judgment of this Court, it has been held that these plots were treated by the landlord plaintiff as forming a part of one holding at a lump sum rent and not at a rate per bigha. The importance of this will be noticed in a moment.

(3.) It seems to me that the decision of this case can be very briefly stated, but the brevity of my observations show no lack of respect to the judgment of the learned Judge of this Court whose judgment we are reversing. In the first instance, I propose to refer to a decision of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in which this matter has been dealt with, Katyayani Debi V/s. Uday Kumar Das where the decision of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was expressed by Lord Salvesen as follows: The doctrine of suspension of payment of rent, where the tenant has not been put in possession of part of the subject leased, has been applied where the rent was a lump rent for the whole land leased treated as an indivisible subject. It has no application to a case where the stipulated rent is so much per acre or bigha.