MUTHUKUMARA PADAYACHI Vs. SAMBANDAM PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition to revise the order of the Revenue Court, Kumbakonam, in P. No. 1115 of 1958, ascertaining the arrears of rent payable by the petitioner -tenant at 137 kalams and 3 marakkals of paddy and 10 bundles of straw, and direction that, if the tenant failed to pay the same on or before 6th March, 1959 and to report the fact by the next day, eviction would follow. The order on the face of it, is wrong. There is no ascertainment, in terms of cash, of the arrears of rent. Secondly, the direction has been made for the tenant to pay the landlord and not into Court. It has been held in this Court that such a direction is illegal. The order for eviction could not be sustained on that ground.

(2.) BUT , Mr. K. Raman, learned Counsel for the petitioner, has taken another line of attack to the order of the lower Court. Originally, there was a contract of lease, Exhibit P -1, in regard to the property, executed by the tenant in favour of the landholder on 1st June, 1955. Under that document, a fixed rent was payable. The case for the landlord was that the tenant was in arrears for faslis 1366 and 1367 and that about 137 kalams of paddy were due by way of arrears. The case for the tenant was that, although Exhibit P -1 stipulated a fixed rent, the parties subsequently agreed that the lease should be on the basis of a waram system and that he had delivered over the landlord's share of the paddy on the threshing floor at each harvest. This was rejected by the lower Court, and I am of opinion that the lower Court was right in doing so.

(3.) THE finding that 137 kalams and 3 marakkals of paddy and 10 bundles of straw are the arrears due from the petitioner to the respondent is affirmed. But the lower Court will proceed to assess the value of that quantity of paddy and the 10 bundles of straw and fix a definite time, by which the amount has to be paid into Court, in default of payment of which eviction can be directed.