SIVANUPANDIA THEVAR AND TEN ORS Vs. MEENAKSHI SUNDARA VINAYAKA VISAKAPERUMAL SETHURAYAR AVARGAL MINOR ZAMINDAR OF URKAD REPRESENTED BY KRISHNA RAO MANAGER OF THE ESTATE UNDER THE COURT OF WARDS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These eleven second appeals have arisen out of suits brought by the tenants of the Urkad Estate to have their rents, which had been mostly paid in grain and partially in cash consolidated and commuted to a definite money rent under Section 40, Clause 1 of the Madras Estates Land , Act. One or more or all of the following six questions arise for decision in these second appeals.

(2.) Firstly, whether the lower Courts were right in construing Section 40, Clause 3(a) of the Estates Land Act to mean that the Collector in making the determination as to the proper money rent should have regard to the average value of the rent actually accrued due to the landholder during the ten years. preceding the year of the determination of such commuted rent or whether the true meaning of that section is that the Collector should have regard to the average value of the rent during the ten years preceding the institution of the suit. I am clear that according to the true construction of the language of the section, it means the ten years preceding the year when the Collector determined the amount of the commuted rent by his decision in the suit. I think that it is unreasonable to hold that an average rent of ten preceding years was intended (ordinarily) to come into force not immediately after the ten years but with a break or interval occupied by the period during which the suit was pending.

(3.) Mr. Venkatarama Sastriar mentioned some inconveniences which would be felt by the Courts (Original and Appellate) in the trial of such suit if his interpretation of the Section (namely the ten years preceding the institution of the suit) was not accepted. I do not think that those inconveniences are of such a serious nature as to override what I consider to be the plain meaning of the clause. It was further to be remembered that this average of ten years is only to form one of the considerations for the fixing of the commuted rent that the Court is at liberty to take other facts also into consideration where the circumstances are peculiar (such as where some of the ten years are extraordinary years). I think that in the decision of these cases relating to commutation of rent in second appeal, we ought not to interfere with the discretion of the lower Courts except on very clear grounds as the whole question of commutation permits of and is intended by the legislature to be governed by the experience of Revenue officers and by equitable considerations (some of a rough and ready character) permitting of the use of large discretion and practical sense.