The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of Section 79(iii) of the Local Boards Act, particularly regarding the calculation of annual rent value and the justification for adding water rate to rent.

Pakenham Walsh, J.

1. I have had the advantage of perusing the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver and I agree with him on both the points as regards the maintainability of the suit and as regards the construction to be put upon Section 79(iii) of the Madras Local Boards Act. I wish only to make a few remarks on the latter point, as the former becomes academic on the view we take as to the meaning of Section 79(iii), and the non-maintainability of the suit was merely urged by the respondent in case we differ from the finding of the lower Court with regard to the construction of this section.

2. As observed by my learned brother, the wording of Section 79(iii) has remained practically the same since the Local Funds Act of 1871, although the position of the landholder in relation to private lands has in the meanwhile undergone considerable change. In Section 2(iii) of the Rent Recovery Act of 1865 the wording was slightly different in describing how the rates of rent were to be determined. Where there was no special contract between the landlord and the tenant and when no money assessment has been fixed on the fields, it is there stated that rent is to be paid according to the rates established, or paid, for neighbouring lands of similar description and quality. The Acts of 1871, of 1884 and of 1920 omit the word description and merely mention quality; but it is difficult to see how any argument in favour of the appellant can be founded upon this alteration.

3. The really important point is that in construing the Act of 1920 we are dealing with, an Act in which the words landlord and tenant are defined for purposes of the Act in Section 3 Clauses (9) and (22). The definition of the term landlord is much wider than that in the Madras Estates Land Act. As pointed out by Pandalai, J. in Bhupathi Raju v. Subba Rao I.L.R. (1931) 55 Mad. 646 : 62 M.L.J. 472:

The definition of the word landholder in the two Acts is entirely different In the Madras Estates Land Act the landholder is a person owning an estate, the term estate being itself defined in the Act. In the Madras Local Boards Act the term landholder includes a very much larger class of persons including inter alia holders of land under ryotwari settlement. In the Madras Estates Land Act the term ryot means the holder of land in an estate for agriculture on payment of rent. This term is not used in the Madras Local Boards Act. But the term tenant is used and defined as including all persons, who occupy land under a landholder or intermediate landholder whether or not they pay rent. These differences are due to the two Acts not being in pari materia and therefore the application of ideas derived from one Act to questions arising under the other is bound to be wholly misleading. The Madras Estates Land Act is designed to regulate the rights of landholders and ryots in an estate as defined by the Act. The taxation provisions of the Madras Local Boards Act are designed to raise a fund for the purpose of Local Self-Government.

4. Consequently a great deal of the argument on behalf of the appellant, which is founded upon a conception of a landholder under the Madras Estates Land Act is beside the point. There is however, as observed by my learned brother, a real difficulty in understanding why rent paid for irrigation by the tenants of Pannai lands to the landlord should be taken into account in fixing the cess and the difficulty is not lessened by the fact that under the Irrigation Cess Act II of 1913 the words landholder and ryot are stated to be as defined in the Madras Estates Land Act. The Madras Irrigation Cess Act VII of 1865 makes cess leviable, in accordance with the rules which may be framed, (a) from the land-holder; or (b) from the ryot; or (c) in shares from both. In spite of this additional complication, I agree with my learned brother that there is no justification for reading into the plain words of the first part of Section 79 (iii), viz., "the ann