HIS HOLINESS SRI LA SRI SHANMUGHA DESIGHA GANANASAMBANDA PARAMACHARIA SWAMIGAL ADHEENAKARTHAR OF DHARMAPURAM ADHEENAM DHARMAPURAM Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER is a hereditary trustee of certain temples and kattalais. The prayer in the writ petition is for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the State of Tamil Nadu and the District Collector of Thanjavur to forbear from collecting 4/5th of the land revenue or kist due for faslis 1383 to 1387 in respect of lands belonging to the petitioner.

(2.) THE petitioner contends that under S.6 of the Public Trust Act, a religious trust is prohibited from having any land under pannai beyond the ceiling limit and therefore, the petitioner has to let out his lands to a large number of tenants. Though originally the tenants were inducted in possession of any agreed amount of rent/lease payable by them by reason of Tamil Nadu Acts designed to relieve cultivating tenants of their liability for payment of accumulated arrears of lease, the position emerged that if a tenant, who was in arrears during the faslis 1383 to 1387 pays the 1/ 5th of the arrears of the lease, then the entirely of the balance is wiped out. By reason of the said provisions, the petitioner had not been able to collect form several lessees, 4/5th of the lease amount. When, at the same time, the liability of the petitioner to pay the full land revenue or kist is insisted upon by the respondents and there is no corresponding abatement of land revenue/kist given to the petitioner. Alleging that the petitioner had been put to enormous loss by reasons of payment of land revenue/kist without abatement, the present writ petition has been filed for Mandemus to forbear the respondents from collecting 4/5th of the land revenue for faslis 1383 to 1387.

(3.) LEARNED Additional Government Pleader opposes the contentions of the petitioner and submits that the levy of land revenue is a well accepted prerogative of the Crown and has received judicial recognition in several judgments and being part of common law/customary law of the land, is saved by Art, 372 of the Constitution of India. He further submits that the petitioners contention that the land revenue is in the form of king�s share (Rajabhogam) is not tenable under the constitutional set-up, where the powers of the State have to be traced within the ambit of the constitutional provisions and not on vague theory of king�s share.