The Court clarified the jurisdiction of the District Collector and the Sub-Collector under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, emphasizing the need for proper exercise of jurisdiction under Section 15(4) of the Act.

Patanjali Sastri, J.

1. This Civil Revision Petition came on for, hearing before one of us in the first instance and was referred to a Division Bench as it raises questions of some difficulty and importance regarding the scope of the revisional jurisdiction of this Court under Section 115, Civil Procedure Code.; -

2. The petitioner is the zamindar of Venkatagiri and the respondents are some of the tenants of Tirumur, a village in the zamindari. They applied to the Sub-Collector of Gudur for relief under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, 1938 in respect of the arrears of rent payable by them, depositing certain amounts Whicji, they claimed to be the rents due to the petitioner for fasli 1347 as required by Section 15(4) of the Act. The zamindar contended that, as the tenants held their lands on what is known as the waram tenure, they were liable to pay rent in kind being a moiety of the gross produce of their respective holdings, and that, theref re the deposit of money on the basis of cash, rents was due not compliance with the provisions of the Act. He further pleaded that the sums deposited even if regarded as the value of the landlords share of the produce,, were much below its market value at the time and on this ground also they were not entitled to relief under the Act.

3. The Sub-Collector found that, notwithstanding the recovery of dash rents for some previous faslis at the rate of Rs. 5 per acre, rent in kind had not been commuted to a definite money rent in the village and that therefore, the amounts deposited by the tenants could not be deemed to be the rent due for fasli 1347 on the view, apparently, that, where waram rent is payable the deposit required by that Act should be of the landlords share of the produce itself. He did not accordingly go into the petitioners further plea that the amounts deposited fell short of the market value of such produce and dismissed the respondents application,

4. The respondent preferred a revision petition to the District Collector, Nellore purporting to invoke his powers of revision under Section 205 of the Madras Estates Land Act "read with Section 15(4) of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act". No-objection was taken to the maintainability of this proceeding, the zamindar having remained unrepresented, and the District Collector allowed the revision petition holding that Section 15(4) of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, did not contemplate the deposit of rent in kind where such rent was payable but only of its value in money, and that the rate of rent adopted by the tenants at Rs. 5 per acre was the proper rate. He accordingly set aside the order of the Sub-Collector and directed him to proceed with the original petition and grant such relief to the tenants as they were entitled to under the Act. Against that order the zamindar has brought this civil revision petition contending that the District Collector had no jurisdiction to interfere with the order of the Sub-Collector, as Section 205, of the Madras Estates Land Act under which he purported to act had no application to the case.

5. Mr. Seshachalapathi appearing for the tenants raised a preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of this Court to interfere, while Mr. Subba Rao for the zamindar maintained that the case fell within the scope of setion 115 of the Code. It was a curious feature of the arguments on this part of the case that many of the considerations put forward on one side tended to support the other, as the position of the parties was fairly reversed when the earned Counsel for the tenants finally submitted that, if the preliminary objection was overruled and the Court was inclined to agree with the zamindars contention, this Court should itself revise the order of the Sub-Collector on the ground that the latter failed to exercise the jurisdiction vested in him by the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, on an erroneous view of its provisions.

6. The preliminary objection was based on two grounds : fi