- (1.) THESE are four appeals which raise an identical question and have arisen in the following circumstances.
(2.) THE plaintiff Rawal Zorawarsinghji of Jasol instituted four suits, out of which these appeals have arisen in the court of the Assistant Revenue Officer, Malani (Barmer), on 10th October, 1946, on the allegations that Moza Chandesra was a Patta village of his Jagir, that there was a custom that all Maha-jans who lived and worked within the village were liable to pay Jhumpi lag at the rate of 1/8/-per house per annum, and that the defendants were residents of and earring on business in that village. An objection was raised on behalf of the defendants that the suits were of a civil nature and were not triable by a revenue court. THE Revenue Minister of the former Jodhpur State held that the suits were of a revenue nature as they fell within the four corners of rule 3 (i) (e) of the Rules for the establishment of Revenue Courts, 1924, which were in force in that State at the time. Rule 3 (i) (e) runs as follows : - "the following cases shall be triable exclusively by Revenue Courts, whether the land is situated in a Khalsa or Jagir village, and notwithstanding anything contained in the Marwar Court Fees Act, 1914, the court fees noted against each shall be the proper Court Fees leviable, namely : - Cases in which the matter at issue is. Court Fees Leviable. (a ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (b ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (c ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (d ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (e) Where the dues claimed are manorial dues arising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . out of the exercise of any right or privilege in land, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . whether they are payable and if so, on what scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and whether in cash or kind. " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The suits were accordingly returned to the Assistant Revenue Officer for being heard and disposed of accordingly. Then came the Marwar Tenancy Act in force on the 6th April, 1949. These suits were transferred to the Tehsildar, Barmer, (under sec. 2 of the Act) who decreed the suits in favour of the plaintiff on 31st May, 1950. First appeals were taken to the Collector who dismissed them. Thereafter, the defendants preferred second appeals to the Board of Revenue; but as the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951, (Act No. I of 1951), (hereinafter referred to as the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act) had come into force on the 31st January, 1951, these appeals were transferred to the Additional Commissioner, Jodhpur. The Additional Commissioner came to the conclusion that the suits, out of which the appeals before him had arisen, were of a civil nature and were not triable by revenue courts and, therefore, he set aside the decrees passed by the Tehsildar and the Collector, and directed that the suits be transferred to a civil court of competent jurisdiction The defendants went in revision from that order to the Revenue Board. The gist of the order of the Revenue Board is that the suits were rightly transferred to the court of the Tehsildar who had jurisdiction to try them and that appeals were also rightly filed before the Collector or the Deputy Commissioners. The learned member of the Board, however, considered that having regard to the provision of secs. 7 and 6 (4) of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act, the suits in question could not be record by revenue courts as they did not fall within the first or second Schedules thereof and that second appeals, which were pending when the said Act came into force, shou (d have been transferred to a civil courts of com patent jurisdiction. It was therefore, held that the additional Commissioner should not have proceeded to hear the appeals but should have transferred them to a civil court of competent jurisdiction. Finally, the learned members set aside the order of the Additional) Commissioner and directed that these appeals be transferred to this Court for disposal. It is in these circumstances that these appeals have come to this Court for determination. ;,,. Before proceeding further I should like to point out that there is no provision of law which I know of or which has been brought to my notice according to which appeals pending before a revenue court could be transferred to this court for determination. I consider it proper in this connection to draw attention to the provisions of sec. 40 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act, which lays down the procedure where a civil or a revenue court is in doubt as to whether it is competent to entertain any suit, case, proceeding, application or appeal. Sec. 40 (1) is in these terms;-" Where either a civil or a revenue court is in doubt whether it is competent to entertain any suit, case, proceeding, application or appeal, whether it should direct the plaintiff, applicant or appellant to file the same in a court of the other description, the court may submit the record with a statement of the reasons for its doubt to the High Court. " It is admitted before me by learned counsel that this was the proper procedure which should have been adopted in a case like the present where the revenue courts apparently were in difficulty to decide the question of jurisdiction in relation to the proceedings pending before them. As the matter has, however, come to the notice of this court and it would be futile to send the appeals back at this stage for a proper reference to be made according to sec. 40 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act, I have thought it proper to waive this objection as an irregularity and propose to decide the question of jurisdiction on the merits. Learned counsel for the defendants has strenuous argued before me that the plaintiff's claim for recovery of the jhumpa lag from the defendants does not fall within rule 3 (i) (e) of the Rules for the Establishment of Revenue Courts, 1924, which were in force in the former State of Jodhpur, and, therefore, the suit was beyond the jurisdiction of the revenue courts from the very beginning. Having given my cereful consideration to this argument, I am unable to accept it. it appears to me that the suits were filed for recovery of a certain lag which the plaintiff claimed as the holder of the manor or a feudal estate or jagir, and he laid his claim by virtue of his position as such Jagirdar. It is admitted that no such claim could have been laid if the plaintiff was not the jagirdar of the village in question. I am, therefore, in agreement with the view which was held by the Revenue Minister of the former State of Jodhpur that the suits at the time they were filed were of a revenue nature. It follows that they were correctly filed before the Assistant Revenue Office, Banner. If so, there can be no doubt that after the introduction of the Marwar Tenancy Act in April, 1949, the suits were correctly transferred to the court of the Tehsildar An appeal from the decisions of the Tehsildar properly lay to the Collector and then to the Additional Commissioner, In the view which I have adopted above, it must follow that the Additional Commissioner was clearly in error when he came to the conclusion that suits were not triable by revenue courts and, therefore, he should have heard and decided the appeals himself. Be that as it may, the matter was taken in revision to the revenue Board, and the learned members of the revenue Board apparently held the view that even though the suits were properly triable by a revenue court to start with, they ceased to be so triable after the introduction of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act, and, therefore, the appeals which were filed before the Additional Commissioner should not have been heard by him but should have been transferred under sec. 6 (4) of the said Act. But before I deal with this aspect of the case. I think it would be convenient to dispose of an argument addressed to me by learned counsel for the defendants that even though the suits were originally triable by a revenue court, the situation became different when the Marwar Tenancy Act, 1949, came into force. Learned counsel drew my attention to sec. 118 of the Marwar Tenancy Act, which reads as follows: - "all the suits and applications of the nature specified in the second schedule shall be heard and determined by a Revenue Court and no court other than a Revenue Court shall take cognizance of any such suit or application, or of any suit or application based on a cause of action in respect of which relief could be obtained by means of any such suit or application. " It was argued that the plaintiff's suits were not covered by the second Schedule of the Act and, therefore, as soon as the Marwar Tenancy Act had come into force, the Assistant Revenue Officer in whose court the cases were pending at the time had no jurisdiction whatsoever to proceed with them because they were not of a revenue nature and he should have, on general principles read with sec. 9 of the Civil Procedure Code, transferred them to the competent civil court. This argument, however plausible it may appear on the face of it, is without any substance. A reference to sec. 2 (3) of the Marwar Tenancy Act would show that the legislature clearly provided for pending cases there. Sub-sec. (3) of sec. 2 reads as follows: - " (3) All cases under the Rules for the establishment of Revenue Courts, 1924, pending at the commencement of this Act in the courts of Assistant Revenue Officers and Revenue Officers shall stand transferred to the Courts of Tehsildars and Assistant Commissioners in charge of subdivisions respectively and the last mentioned courts shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine the same; and the judgments, and orders of the first mentioned courts delivered or made before the commencement of this Act shall have the same force and effect as if they had been delivered or made by the last mentioned courts. " In my opinion, the above sub-section is complemently to sec. 118 of the Tenancy Act and suggests the conclusion that so far as pending cases are concerned, the policy of the legislature was that all such cases which were pending at the commencement of the new Act in the courts of Assistant Revenue Officers and Revenue Officers were to be disposed of by corresponding Revenue Officers who were now designated as Tehsildars and Assistant Commissioners, and the latter were invested with the jurisdiction to here and determine all such suits. It clearly emerges from a consideration of the provisions of this subsection that the legislature did not contemplate the transfer of pending proceedings from the revenue courts to the civil courts or vice versa. A comparison of sub-secs. (3) and (4) of sec. 5 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act would clearly bring out the different intentions which the legislature has had in the two cases. In this view of the matter, I have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the Assistant Revenue Officer was fully empowered to here and determine the suit without being under the necessity of transferring them to any civil court, and that as these cases were pending in the court of the Assistant Revenue Officer, they were rightly transferred to the court of the Tehsildar under the new set up. This brings me on to a consideration of sec. 6 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act. The Question to determine in this connection is whether the Additional Commissioner could have transferred the appeals pending before him to the competent civil court. The members of the Revenue Board apparently though he could. With respect, I have come to the conclusion that he could not. Sub-sec. (4) which is the relevant provision according to the Revenue Board reads or follows: - " (4) Any suit, application, case or proceeding other than those referred to in sec. 7, pending before a revenue court on the coming into force of this Act shall be transferred by such revenue court to the civil court having jurisdiction to try, hear and determine the same. " It may be as well to quote in this connection the provision of sub-sec. (3 ). " (3) Any suit, application, case or proceeding, pending before a civil court when this Act comes into force, which has been declared by sec. 7 to be exclusively triable by a revenue court, shall be transferred by such civil court to the revenue court, competent under sec. 12 to deal with and dispose of the same. " It seems to have been assumed that sub-sec. (4) or sub-sec. (3) contemplates the transfer of appeals also although it must be emphasized that the word "appeal" does not find any place in either of these sub-sections. This appears to me to be a case of deliberate omission. A comparison of the language of sub-sec. (2) along with that of sub-secs. (3) and (4) brings out the point I have in mind. Where the appeals require to be transferred from the revenue court to another, the legislature clearly made a provision for the transfer of such appeals to the. revenue court competent to hear them under the provisions of the new Act. No such provision was however, made where the transfer involved was from a civil court to a revenue court of vice versa. It cannot be though for a moment that the legislature, which has provided for the transfer of 'appeals' under sub-sec. (2), had forgotten to use that word and make a similar provision just in the next following sub-sees (3) and (4 ). It seems to me that the legislature must have contemplated to leave the decisions of appeals to the courts where they were filed as this would undoubtedly be in the public interest in view of the unnecessary delay and expense that would be occasioned otherwise. It is a settled rule of interpretation that courts should not import words in to a statute which are not there unless such a course becomes inevitable to give meaning and effect to it. Nothing appears to me, or has been suggested to me to warrant the conclusion that the subsections as they stand are unintelligible or that the legislature fell into accidental error in omitting the word "appeals" either in sub-sec. (3) or sub-sec. (4) of sec. 6. In this connection, I may also refer to sub-sec. (1) of sec. 6 which provides that - "all suits, cases, appeals applications, references and proceeding pending before revenue courts on the coming into force of this Act shall be deemed to have commenced under this Act and shall be tried, heard and determined in the manner prescribed by or under this Act. " The inclusion of "appeals" in the above provision is not without significance. Having given my must careful and earnest consideration to the above provisions, therefore, I am unable to accede to the view that sec. 6 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Act contemplates or permits transfer of appeals pending to the commencement of the Act from the revenue courts to the civil courts or form civil courts to the revenue courts. I should like further to add that it is, to my mind, impossible to hold that applies from the decisions of the revenue courts can be filed to the civil courts; for the Rajasthan Civil Courts Ordinance obviously does not govern such appeals, and I know of no other law which may permit this to be done. The conclusion is,therefore, irresistible that the appeals in the present cases were rightly filed before the Additional Commissioner and that the transfer of such appeals to a civil court is not contemplated by the legislature and the Additional Commissioner or any other revenue court does not possess the power to effect any such transfer. In this view of matter, I hold that the order of the Revenue Board transferring these appeals to the "high Court must be quashed, and these appeals be sent back to the additional Commissioner, Jodhpur, for being heard and disposed of according to law. In the peculiar circumstances of these cases, there will be no order as to costs in this Court . ;