Judgement

Appeal (No. 115 of 1924) from a decree of the High Court (October 28, 1919) varying a decree of the District Court of Kistna at Masulipatam which affirmed a decree of the Court of the Suits Deputy Collector.

The suit was brought by the father of the appellants against defendants now represented by the respondents for a decree directing the defendants to accept a puttah tendered to them by the appellants under the Madras Settled Estates Act, 1908, and to execute a corresponding muchalka.

The questions arising were (1.) As to the effect of s. 12 of the Act where a ryot had contracted before the Act that all rights in trees on his holding should belong to the landholder ; (2.) Whether 297 acres included in a lease before the Act were ryoti land within s. 3, sub-s. 16, and s. 6 of the Act.

On the first question the High Court (Seshagiri Ayyar and Napier JJ.), reversing the District Judge, held that the reservation did not operate beyond the term of the lease.

The facts and the terms of s. 12 of the Act appear from the judgment of the Judicial Committee.

1929. May 10, 13. P. V. Subba Row for appellant No. 2.

Dunne K.C. and Narasimham for the respondents.

July 1. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by

LORD BLANESBURGH. There are two questions raised by this appeal they both lie within the narrowest compass ; the second of them barely survives to come before the Board, so complete has been judicial agreement upon it in India, while the determination of the first, which now alone is serious, depends upon the construction of a few words in a single section of a statute. Yet the plaint in the suit was issued as long ago as October 18, 1912, and it is nearly seventeen years thereafter that these short questions reach the Board for final determination, and, in the result will now be settled as they were settled by the Revenue Court in India nearly fifteen years ago. In the course of the proceedings not only has the plaintiff died, but one of his legal representatives, originally appellant, has dropped out, leaving it to the plaintiffs other representative, the second appellant, by himself to bring his case to a hearing. Not the least important of their Lordships duties in disposing of the appeal has been the task of determining how the costs thrown away as the result of well-nigh interminable proceedings in India should now be borne.

The two appellants are the sons and legal representatives of the original plaintiff, the late Raja of North Vellore. On June 6, 1901, the Raja granted to one Ramayya Garu, father of the respondents, for a term of ten years, expiring Fasli, 1320, a lease of some 1363 acres of land in the village of Narayanapuram. Prior to this lease in his favour, Ramayya Garu had, as it is now agreed, no occupancy or other rights in the holding, which, but for the passing of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, would in ordinary course have reverted to the zamindar on the expiry of the lease.

Of the acres comprised in it some 843 were entered as being in cultivation, and 520 as being dry pasture waste. The annual rental for the whole was fixed at Rs. 1784.13, representing, so far as the " cultivation " lands were concerned, a rent of Rs. 0.14.2 per acre, and for the " dry pasture waste " a rent of 8 annas per acre. The lease, however, contained a provision, much relied upon by the appellant

Law Rep. 56 Ind. App. 346 ( 1928- 1929) Bommadevara Naganna Naidu V. Yelamanchili Pitchayya

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in support of his second ground of appeal, that if the lessee raised dry cultivation on the dry pasture waste he had to pay cist upon the land so cultivated at the higher rate of Rs. 0.14.2 per acre as well as expenses.

The main, if not the only real, question now at issue between the parties is as to their respective rights in what the District Judge, at one stage of the case, described as an immense belt upon the holding of paying trees—comprising at least 8000 palmyras and date palms fit for tapping, yielding a substantial r