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Judgment
The plaintiff''s suit is for a declaration that the Government is not entitled to levy ground rent for certain land in his occupation and for the
recovery of the amount collected from him by the Government as ground rent.
The District Judge has decided, and in our opinion, quite rightly, that the plaintiff has not made out any cause of action. Two points are argued in
second appeal. The first is that the Municipality acquired, by the land acquisition proceedings, the inam right which belonged to the original owners
of the land and that by successive sales the plaintiff now owns that right. The Government, it is contended, is entitled only to quit-rent as from the
inamdar and not ground rent. Assuming that a civil court could go into this question, there is really no basis for the contention. The land was
acquired by the Government for the requirements of the Bezwada Municipality under the Land Acquisition Act. It is quite clear that when the land
was acquired, the title to it vested in Government-see Section 16 of the Act. Section 279 of Madras Act IV of 1884 does not help the plaintiff at
all. It provides that on payment by the Municipality of the amount of compensation awarded for the land, the land shall vest in the Municipality. It is
quite clear from that section itself that it is the Government that is to acquire the land. The effect of the section is merely to declare that the title
which vests in the Government by the acquisition passes to the Municipality when the Municipality pays the amount settled as compensation. The
title of the Municipality, therefore, was derived from Government. When the land became vested in the Government it became ordinary
Government land liable to assessment in the hands of any person who might afterwards become the occupier. If the plaintiff claims to hold the land
free from the payment of such assessment as the Government may fix he must show some grant exempting him from the payment of the ordinary
assessment. The appellant''s counsel argues that it must be taken that there was such a grant in this case because, when G. O. No. 20 dated the
30th February 1889 was issued permitting Municipal Councils to transfer lands vested in them by sale, mortgage or otherwise, no condition was
inserted that the assignee would be liable to pay such assessment or ground rent as might be fixed by the Revenue authorities, and that this
condition was inserted only in an order passed in the year 1900. The argument is that, under the previous order of 1889, every transferee from the
Municipality would acquire an absolute right to the property transferred free from the payment of any assessment; in other words, that order
granted an exemption for payment of land revenue to all persons who might purchase lands from the Municipality. This is a contention which it is
impossible to uphold. There are no words of exemption from liability to assessment in the Government Order of 1889. No exemption can be
claimed without a grant or exemption in express words. The construction to be placed on the order of 1889 would be that the transferees would
obtain a title to the land under their transfers although the transferor might be a Municipal Council, i.e., to remove all the objection to the transfer on
the ground that the transferor is a Municipal Council. There is no reason for differing from the conclusion of the lower appellate court. We dismiss
the second appeal with costs.