Hazarath Sayed Shamiah Sakkab Kadiri Thaikkal vs T.B. Ibrahim Sahib

Panchapakesa Ayyar, J.—This is a petition by one Hazarath Sayed Shamian Sakkab Kadiri Thaikkal, for revising and setting aside the

order of the District Munsif, Tanjore, in O.P. No. 43 of 1956 holding that such an Original Petition would lie and that it need not be filed as an

Interlocutory Application in the ejectment suit.

The facts were briefly these : The petitioner is the landlord in respect of the suit property, the respondent Ibrahim Sahib being the tenant. In a

suit for ejectment filed by the landlord-petitioner against the tenant-respondent, O.S. No. 315 of 1950, for recovery of possession of the

properties after demolishing the superstructures erected thereon, the parties entered into a compromise on 10th January, 1952, fixing a rent of Rs.

60 per month and giving the tenant a lease for twelve years, from 1st January, 1952 till 31st December, 1963, at that rate of rent, the tenant being

directed to vacate the premises on 31st December, 1963 and the landlord being entitled to get possession through Court, the tenant being entitled

to remove the superstructure. But, during this interval of 12 years tenancy, given under the compromise, Madras Act III of 1952 was extended to

Tanjore Town, where the property is situated, by G.O. 1345, Revenue dated 24th March, 1956. Under that Act, a right is given to a tenant in

certain contingencies to purchase the leased property from the landlord for a price to be fixed the Court. The respondent-tenant filed O.P. No. 43

of 1956 under that Act for fixing the value and for making the landlord sell the property to him. The petitioner-landlord raised several contentions.

One of those contentions, namely, that an Original Petition would not lie for this relief, but only an Interlocutory Application in O.S. No. 315 1950,

should be filed, was treated as a preliminary point by the lower Court. The learned District Munsif came to the conclusion that, in the

circumstances, and especially as the suit had been closed, and no execution was pending, an Original Petition would be the proper proceeding to

agitate this question. Of course, he left all other contentions intact. The landlord has felt aggrieved at this decision and has come up here in revision.

I have perused the records, and heard the learned Counsel on both sides. Mr. Kothandarama Nayanar, learned Counsel for the petitioner,

urged that the lower Court erred grievously in its finding on this preliminary contention that if it allowed the tenant to purchase the property at a

valuation from the landlord the decree for ejectment in O.S. No. 315 of 1950 would automatically get modified, and, under the law, such a

modification could only be effected in an Interlocutory Application or Execution Application connected with the suit or execution. I cannot agree.

In these days of expropriatory and revolutionary laws, several rights, never dreamt of when the suit was disposed of, are given to tenants,

agricultural and others, under Statutes which stand by themselves and have to be carefully gone into and interpreted before the relief vouchsafed by

them is available to the person claiming them. The fact that that person happened to be a party to a suit and decree, touching the matter either

directly or tangentially, is irrelevant. So the proper way of deciding the questions arising under such independent Statutes will be in Original

Petitions though the effect of allowing the Original Petition may be to modify a decree, where the party granted the relief is a party to the decree.

But that cannot make any difference. Nor can it cause the least injury to the person affected. It is all a question of half a dozen and six, the

nomenclature alone differing. Mr. Kothandarama Nayanar urged that there was no known case in law, so far, where a decree could be affected by

an order in a separate Original Petition or other unconnected petition. He is not correct in this. Thus, where a landlord had obtained a decree

against a tenant in respect of his house, for rent at Rs. 60 per month, the tenant often files an Original Petition for fixing the fair rent, and gets the

fair rent fixed at Rs. 30, or Rs. 40 or 50, and that fixation of fair rent will affect the decree and reduce the rent of Rs. 60 decreed therein to Rs. 30

or 40 or 50 and, yet, the landlord cannot say that the order will not be binding on him as it was not passed in Interlocutory Application or

Execution Application but in an independent Original Petition.

This Civil Revision Petition deserves to be and is hereby dismissed, but, in the circumstances, without costs. All the other contentions of both the

parties are left intact to be decided in the Original Petition.