The main legal point established in the judgment is that the transfer of ownership after the cause of action arose did not affect the exclusive jurisdiction of the Revenue Court over suits for arrears of rent under the Madras Estates Land Act.

Oldfield, J.

1. In such a case there must be rate-able distribution. The policy of the Act is that such suits should be brought in the Revenue Courts and the Civil Courts have no jurisdiction. If an "owner" farms out his "estate" after he has acquired a right for arrears of rent it cannot be said that he loses his rights of summary procedure. The right of suit having accrued in a Revenue Court no act of the landholder, such as transfer of the estate, could take away from him that right.

2. N. Rama Rao for respondent.--The question is, is he a landholder any longer. He must be entitled at the time of suit to sue for the rents, i.e., he must own an estate or part thereof. By the transfer he has ceased to be a landholder. Reference was made to Sections 3(5) and 189, Sundaram Ayyar v. Kulathu Ayyar (1916) I.L.R., 39 Mad., 1018, Venkata Lahshmamma v. Seetayya (1920) I.L.R., 43 Mad., 786, and Forbes v. Maharaj Bahadur Singh (1914) I.L.R., 41 Calc., 926 (P.C.).

Wallis, C.J.

3. In this case the Civil and the Revenue Courts have both declined jurisdiction over a suit, instituted by the plaintiff after he had parted with his estate, to recover rent which had accrued due to him while he was still the owner of the estate and, as such, a "landholder" as defined in Section 3, Clause (5), of the Madras Estates Land Act. One of the principal changes effected by that Act was that on grounds of policy it took away from the Civil Courts and transferred to Revenue Officers jurisdiction to try rent suits instituted by "landholders" against "ryots" as defined in the Act. Section 189 confers jurisdiction on a Collector, or other Revenue Officer specially authorized, to try this and the other suits and applications specified, and expressly prohibits any Civil Court from taking cognizance in the exercise of its original jurisdiction of any dispute or matter in respect of which such suit or application might be brought or made.

4. This cause of action when it arose was one which the Revenue Court was empowered to try and the Civil Court was prohibited from trying. It was one which in the interest of the landholders and the ryots, and especially of the ryots, the legislature considered should be disposed of by the Revenue Court; and the real question in this case appears to me to be, whether, looking at the Act as a whole, it was the intention of the legislature that the parties should be deprived of the appointed forum for this class of suits by reason of the fact that, after the cause of action accrued and before the institution of the suit, the plaintiff parted with his estate and ceased to come within the definition of "landholder" as "owner" of the estate.

5. One of the questions referred to us is whether the fact that after the transfer he was entitled to collect certain arrears brought him within the second part of the definition as a person entitled to collect the rents of the whole or any portion of the estate by virtue of any transfer from the owner or his predecessor in title or of any order of a competent Court or of any provision of law.

6. Assuming for the moment it did not, that would not, it appears to me, conclude the further question in the reference as to the jurisdiction of the Revenue Court over a suit for such arrears, which is really the only question arising on the facts of the case. The undoubted effect of Section 189 of the Act is to confer on the Revenue Court exclusive jurisdiction to try suits for rent accruing due to a landholder from a ryot on his estate and to prohibit the Civil Courts from entertaining them. The Revenue Court having thus become seized with exclusive jurisdiction over this cause of action when it arose, I can find no sufficient reason for holding that the Revenue Court became divested of this exclusive jurisdiction by reason of a transfer of ownership after the cause of action arose. The subsequent transfer in no way affects the cause of action or the reasons which moved the legislature to confer exclusi