Subbaroya Goundan vs S. Ranganada mudaliar and Seven Ors.

John Wallis, C.J.—The question involved in this appeal is whether a zamindar or mittadar who under his sanad has a right to collect the jodi

payable by an inamdar has a charge for arrears of such jodi on the interest of the inamdar. Before considering this question it may be well to refer

to the right of Government to a charge for arrears of revenue and to the right of the inamdar for arrears against the ryots themselves.

It was held by Innes, J., in Subbaraya v. The Sub-Collector of Chingleput ILR (1883) Mad. 303 , that ""the right of the Government is only a

right to charge on the land, and a right to forfeit by due course of law, the title of the person holding the land who does not pay the charge,"" and

this was cited with approval by Shephard, J., in Secretary of State v. Ashtamurthi ILR (1890) Mad. 89 . In the present case the Government

assigned its right to revenue to the inamdar subject to the payment of a jodi, and it is well settled that by virtue of such assignment the inamdar did

not acquire a charge upon the land, but was left to recover rent from the occupiers under the provisions of the Madras Rent Recovery Act of

1865; and it was not until the passing of the Act of 1908 that landholders, including certain inamdars acquired a statutory charge for rent. As

regards the jodi payable by the inamdar to Government it is where it has not been assigned, recoverable by Government like zamindar''s peshkash

by sale of the inamdar''s interest under the law in force for the time being, now the Revenue Recovery Act, 1864. u/s 2 of that Act the land, the

buildings upon it, and its products are to be regarded as the security for the public revenue, but provided they have paid the rent to the landholder

the ryots are not affected by the landholder''s default to pay the revenue due by him (Section 33) and all that Government can do is to sell the

interest of the defaulter free of all incumbrances. The right to sell free of incumbrance in such a case is conferred by Section 42 of the Act.

Coming now to cases where the right to collect the jodi has been transferred to the zamindar or mittadar under his sanad, there is a long series

of decisions in this Court that, when Government transfers the right to collect the jodi to a zamindar or mittadar in consideration of his undertaking

to pay a fixed peshkash, the zamindar or mittadar has no charge upon them and that a suit by him to recover jodi is a suit for rent and nothing more

and so cognizable in this Presidency by the Court of Small Causes.

It was apparently so held in Surya Prakasa Row v. The Maharaja of Vizianagaram Second Appeal No. 692 of 1890 and though a different

view was taken in Venkatramadoss v. Zamindar of Vizianagaram Second Appeal No. 822 of 1894 vide footnote in Vizianagaram Maharajah v.

Sitaramarazu ILR (1896) Mad. 100 it was again so ruled by Shephard and Subrahmanya Ayyar, JJ., in Mullapudi Balahrishnayya v.

Venkatanarasimha Appa Rao ILR (1896) Mad. 329 and Venkatagiri Rajah v. Venkat Rau ILR (1898) Mad. 243; Gajapati Rajah v.Sryanarayana

ILR (1899) Mad. 11, and Appa Rao v. Sobhanadri Rao ILR (1901) Mad. 158 are to the same effect, and in Kastvri Gopala Ayyangar v.

Anantaram Thivari ILR 26 Mad. 730 it was again laid down broadly that assignees of revenue cannot proceed u/s 42 of the Revenue Recovery

Act, and have only a personal claim. On the principle of stare decisis, I feel bound to adhere to these decisions. The fact that jodi was held to be

rent payable to a landholder by a tenant within the meaning of the Rent Recovery Act of 1865 having regard to the definition of landholder [see

Lakshminarayana Pantulu v. Venkatrayanam ILR (1898) Mad. 116 and the cases there cited), and that similar provisions were to be found in the

Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, until these provisions were themselves repealed by the Amending Act of 1909 has no direct bearing on the

question but marks it more than ever undesirable to question the authority of the decisions laying down the competency of the Small Cause Courts

to try suits for jodi on which the legislature may have acted in finally deciding to leave such suits to the Civil Courts. The earlier cases--Suryanna v.

Durgi ILR (1884) Mad. 258, Alubi v. Kunhi Bi ILR (1887) Mad. 115 and Krishnasami v. Venkatarama ILR (1890) Mad. 319 were not cases of

jodi, but assignments of portions of the revenue payable directly by the ryot and in the last of these cases Shephard, J., who was a party to some

of the later decisions doubted if a mere assignment of revenue would convey a charge. In Ramachandra v. Jaganmohana ILR (1892) Mad. 161 the

point did not arise. These decisions in my opinion afford no sufficient ground for questioning the numerous subsequent decisions expressly in point.

If the law there laid down is to be altered it should, I think, be by legislature. We must reverse the decree in so far as it affects the eighth defendant

and allow his appeal with costs throughout. The memorandum of objections by the seventh defendant is dismissed with costs. As regards the

defendants Nos. 2 to 6 the decree is varied so as to make it a decree against the joint family property in their hands under Order XLI, Rule 33 of

the Code of Civil Procedure.

Seshagiri Ayyar, J.

It is not without hesitation that I have come to the conclusion that the appeal should be allowed.

The first question is whether the jodi due from the inamdar is a charge upon the land. I understood Mr. Ramachandra Ayyar to concede that if it

is directly payable to Government, it would be a first charge. Apart from this admission, I am of opinion that there is a first charge for the jodi. It

was pointed out in Secretary of State for India v. Bombay Landing and Shipping Co. (1868) 5 Bom. H.C.R. 23 that by the common Law of this

country, the debt due to the King took priority over other debts, with the possible exception of those due to Brahmans. This view was accepted in

some of the early Bengal Regulations: see Judah v. Secretary of Stats for India ILR (1886) Calc. 445. At the time of the permanent settlement, it

was recognized in Madras--vide Section 6 of Regulation XXVII of 1802. In the Revenue Recovery Act of 1864, there is an express provision to

that effect. I am satisfied that the jodi payable by inamdars is within the purview of that Act.

Mr. Ramachandra Ayyar strongly relied on some of the decisions of this Court which have held that a claim for kattubadi or jodi is cognizable

by the Court of Small Causes. They are all cases in which the payments were due to the zamindar as part of his income. The term jodi or quit-rent

is applied indiscriminately to what is recoverable by a proprietor from his under-tenure holders as well as to payments due to Government by way

of assessment. None of the cases, so far as I have examined them, related to the jodi payable to Government. Further these decisions proceed on

the construction of the terms landholder and tenant in Act VIII of 1865. Even under the old Act, the decisions were not uniform: see Alubi v.

Kunhi Bi ILR (1887) Mad. 115 and Vizianagaram Maharajah v. Sitaramarazu 19 Mad. 100 the case in the footnote. It is true that a larger number

of cases have taken a different view--Vizianagaram Maharajah v. Siiaramarazu 19 Mad. 100 Mullapudi Balakrishnayya v. Venkatanarasimha

Appa Rao ILR (1896) Mad. 329, Gajapati Rajah v. Suryanarayana ILR (1899) Mad. 11, Lingam Krishna Bhupati Devu v. Vikrama Devu

(1890) 10 Mad. L.J. 256, Appa Rao v. Sobhanadri Rao ILR (1901) Mad.158. Mr. Justice Subrahmanya Ayyar has explained in

Lakshminarayana Pantulu v. Venkatrayanam ILR (1898) Mad.116 the reason for this change. Although on the principle of stare decisis, it is

undesirable to upset this course of decisions, I am not prepared to extend them to cases in which the jodi is payable to Government.

The next point for consideration is whether the plaintiff can stand in the shoes of the Government and claim a first charge. If the right to collect

the jodi was assigned to him as such, I would be prepared to hold that he has a first charge. I accept Mr. Srinivasa Ayyangar''s contention that an

assignee of Government revenue is entitled to the security which the Government had although he may not have all the statutory remedies which the

assignor had. The principle of Section 141 of the Indian Contract Act is applicable to such assignments. North, J. in In re Lord Churchill Manisty

v. Churchill (1888) 39 Ch. D. 174 says that the priority which the Crown has enures for the benefit of the surety. This is the view taken in

Suryanna v. Durgi ILR (1884) Mad. 258 and Krisknasami v. Venkatarama ILR (1890) Mad. 319. In Kasturi Gopala Ayyangar v. Anantaram

Thivari ILR (1903) Mad. 730, the learned Judges say that if the tax-payer was in a position to be proceeded against by the Government, the

assessment will be a charge. I understand that decision to lay down that so long as the distinctive character of Government assessment remains,

whoever may be the person that collects it, he will have a first charge. If it lays down that under no circumstances can an assessment which is

collected by an assignee create a charge, I respectfully dissent from that view.

The difficulty in this case arises in finding out whether the jodi as such was assigned to the plaintiff''s predecessor-in-title The sanad is not

produced. We are not in a position to say whether in the permanent settlement a distinction was made between the right to collect the jodi and the

right to collect rents from tenants. It cannot be said that the jodi was not included in the assets on which the peshkash was fixed. One circumstance

on which Mr. Ramachandra Ayyar laid stress has influenced my finding on the point. From Exhibits G and H, it appears that the Government

decided to claim the entire jodi as the mittadar had been given waste lands in other villages to which he was not entitled. It was argued by the

learned vakil for the appellant that the income from these waste lands was taken into account in including the whole of the jodi in the pshkash. I

think there is force in the argument. If this is the correct view, the Government did not assign the jodi as such and therefore the mittadar cannot

claim a first charge. This state of affairs can only be rectified by Government.

I agree in the order proposed by my Lord.