Payment made to the former landlord Bonafide.

These revision petitions have been filed to revise the orders of the Sub-Collector of Pollachi passed under section 3 of the Cultivating Tenants Protection Act directing the eviction of the petitioners on the ground that there were arrears of rent due from them. The ground urged by learned counsel for the petitioners was that there was really no arrears and that therefore orders for eviction should be set aside.

A few facts are necessary to be stated in order to appreciate the manner in which this point arises. The facts of the two petitions are nearly the same and as the points raised are identical it is sufficient to set out the facts involved in C. R. P. No. 538 of 1957.

The property from which the petitioners-tenants were sought to be evicted originally belonged to Messrs. Mohamed Hussain Sahib and four others who were adjudicated insolvents in I. P. No. 17 of 1953 on the file of the Sub-Court, Coimbatore. The property was leased out to the petitioners under a registered lease-deed dated 19th March, 1951 for an annual rental of Rs. 4,000 for a term of five years. At the time of the execution of the lease, the tenants paid the landlords an advance of Rs. 5,000 and in regard to this amount the lease provided that Rs. 1,000 out of it was to be adjusted towards the rent payable for the fourth year and the entire balance of Rs. 4,000 was to be taken as the rent for the fifth year. The tenant was paying the rent regularly at Rs. 4,000 a year for the first, second and third years and he paid a sum of Rs. 3,000 for the fourth year as stipulated in the lease deed.

The Official Receiver in whom the estate of the landlords vested, filed an application for eviction on the ground that the tenants were in arrears of rent which they had defaulted to pay. This was sought to be made out in the following manner. I.P No. 17 of 1953 in which the landlords were adjudicated as insolvents was presented on 2nd February, 1953. The adjudication order was passed on 13th July, 1955. The Official Receiver in his petition stated that all payments made to the insolvent after 2nd February, 1953 (the date of the presentation of I.P. No. 17 of 1953) as also "all adjustments towards the rent made in pursuance of the conditions in the lease-deed in regard to rent payable after the date of the presentation of the petition, would not be binding upon him, with the result that on the date of the application for eviction the rent payable for the second, third, fourth and fifth years, namely, Rs. 16,000 would be due from the tenants and that in default of their paying this sum to him, he was entitled to an order for eviction. The Revenue Divisional Officer has accepted this contention and ascertaining that an arrear of Rs. 16,000 was due from the tenants directed their eviction in default of payment of this sum within a time limited.

There is no doubt that on the adjudication of the landlords on 13th July, 1955, the Official Receiver stepped into their shoes by operation of law. It is also undoubted that the title of the Official Receiver related back to the date of the presentation of petition, namely, 2nd February, 1953. The question that has now to be considered is whether from these it follows that payments made by the tenants to the insolvents or adjustments made in regard to the rents which had accrued due under contracts entered into long before the insolvency are or are not binding on the Official Receiver. The provision of law with reference to which, this matter has to be decided, is contained in section 55 of the Provincial Insolvency Act. Notwithstanding that section 28(7) of the Act provides for the order of adjudication relating back and taking effect from the date of presentation of the petition on which it was made, section 55 enacts:

"55. Subject to the foregoing provisions of this Act with respect to the effect of insolvency on an execution, and with respect to the avoidance of certain transfers and preferences, nothing in this Act shall inval