AYYAPERUMALODAYAN Vs. SRMARRAMASAMI CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These and other connected suits were brought under the provisions of Section 56 of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, by a landholder to compel his ryots to accept the pattahs tendered to them for Fasli 1318. In such suits it is the duty of the Revenue Court, under Section 57 of the Act, to determine what is a proper pattah. The proprietor claimed that a usage existed in this village to collect rents according to the amani system; in other words, that the ryots should give rents in waram which implies a division of the crop between the landholder and the ryot (vide Section 29 of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908). To this the ryots rejoined that by a long standing custom they had been paying fixed money rents, and they denied the usage set up by the plaintiff to pay rents in kind. The question thus arose whether money rents or waram rents were the rents established by agreement or custom in this village.

(2.) The Deputy Collector who tried these suits found that the plaintiff had not proved that the rents contended for by him were the rents lawfully payable. He also found that the rents contended for by the defendants had not been proved to be the fixed money rents lawfully payable.

(3.) He then proceeded to discuss the plaintiff s contention that he had a right to revert to the amani system in the light of Act I of 1908, which he considered to have altered the law as laid down in Section 11 of the Madras Rent Recovery Act (VIII of 1865). This section provided that, if either party were dissatisfied with the rates determined by the Collector according to local usage or to rates paid for neighbouring lands, he might claim to have the rent discharged in kind according to the waram. There is no similar provision in the Madras Estates Land Act (I of 1908); but Section 27 of that Act declares: "If a question arises as to the amount of rent payable by a ryot, or the conditions under which he holds in any revenue year, he shall be presumed, until the contrary is shown, to hold at the same rate, and under the same conditions, as in the last preceding revenue year;" and the next section creates a presumption that the rent payable for the time being is fair and equitable, until the contrary is proved. Finally, the Deputy Collector decided that the proper rents payable for Fasli 1318 should be those decreed in the plaintiff s suit to recover rent for Fasli 1317. The District Judge on appeal agreed with the Deputy Collector s findings of fact except as to the date up to which the amani system prevailed. In his opinion, there was evidence that it prevailed up to the year 1871, whereas the Deputy Collector found that it was not in force subsequent to 1868.