The main legal point established in the judgment is that agreements for renewal under S.17 of the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929, are valid and enforceable, and S.17 does not restrict the freedom of contract between landlord and tenant in taking renewals of kanom.

1. This second appeal is in a suit for rent due under the kanom kychit, evidenced by Ext. A-1 dated September 28,1950.

2. Ext. B-1 dated January 18,1942, is the original kanom between the parties under which the kanom amount was Rs. 50/- and the annual rent Rs. 30/-. No definite term was stipulated in that deed. On August 11, 1944, it was renewed for a term of 6 years by Ext. B-2 raising the kanom amount to Rs. 100/-and the annual rent to Rs. 66/-. Ext. A-1 is a kychit, in renewal of Ext. B-2, executed by the defendant agreeing to pay an enhanced rent of Rs. 110/- per annum. It is conceded that the rent upto 1131 M.E. had been paid according to Ext. A-1 This suit is for the rent for 1133 M.E. (1957-58). The defendant contended that Exts. B-2 & A-1 are invalid and that therefore he is bound to pay only the rent stipulated under Ext. B-1. The courts below accepted his plea and decreed rent as per Ext. B-1. The plaintiff has come up in second appeal.

3. S.17, the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929, originally, provided: "A kanamdar shall, on the expiry of the kanam under which he holds, be entitled to claim and his immediate landlord shall be bound to grant a renewal, enuring for a period of twelve years, of the same on payment, as renewal fee" a sum calculated as per the rest of the section. In K.P. Soopi v. R. Kanaran (AIR. 1958 Mad. 71) Govinda Menon, J. observed that "without a specific consideration or justification there can be no increase of rent or purappad in the case of renewals under S.17 of the Malabar Tenancy Act." In finding Exts. B-2 & A-1 void ab initio and unenforceable the Courts below relied largely on the above observation. I am afraid neither Ext. B-2 nor Ext. A-1 can be characterised as a renewal under S.17 of the Malabar Tenancy Act. According to counsel for the respondent, Ext. B-1, not having been stipulated to be for any term, must be taken as a kanom for 12 years, expiring by 1954. Exts. B-2 and A-1 were them long before the expiry of the prior kanom; there was no payment of renewal fee for either; & both were for a term of 6 years only. Thus none of the incidents of a renewal under S.17 is present in Ext. B-2 or Ext. A-1. Obviously therefore, Exts. B-2 & A-1 are not renewals under S.17 and the observations in K.P. Sooppi v. R. Kanaran do not straightaway apply to them.

4. Counsel for the respondent contended that the agreement to pay enhanced rent embodied in Exts. B-2 and A-1 had no consideration and is not therefore enforceable. I am afraid that the law of consideration is misunderstood in this argument. In a lease the consideration is for the enjoyment of the land under the lease and not for the execution of the lease; in other words, 'rent' is the consideration for a lease - vide the definition of a lease in S.105 of the Transfer of Property Act. A kanom partakes the nature of a mortgage and of a lease. Under it an advance is given which is charged on the property. So far as the mortgage aspect is concerned such advance - usually called the kanom amount - forms the consideration. And, so far as the lease aspect is concerned the rent - often called michavaram or purappad - is the consideration. When agrarian reforms began to concede fixity of tenure for leases, the lease aspect of a kanom came to be regarded as the more important one so that the kanomholders also may have a right to enjoy their holdings permanently. The question here is of the rent of the property. What was enhanced under Ext. A-1 is the rent only. In the context, the kanom has to be viewed as a lease and then its consideration is the

rent. It cannot then be said that Exts. B-2 and A-1 lacked consideration. Further, no special consideration is needed for surrender of a lease. The release from obligation to pay further rents is sufficient consideration for the surrender of a subsisting lease. Mulla in his commentary on the Transfer of Property Act (4th edn. p. 681) observes: "Implied surrender or surrender by operation of law occurs