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1954 DIGILAW 43 (MAD)

Seeranga Gounden v. M. V. Narayanan

1954-01-25

RAJAGOPALAN

body1954
Judgment The learned Munsif decided that the case falls under section 7(v)(b) and not under section 7(v)(d) of the Court-Fees Act. Section 7(v)(a) and section 7(v)(d) apply to lands in what were known as “permenantly settled estates”. Section 7(v)(b) applies to lands in Ryotwari areas. Since the abolition of the permanently settled estates, after the abolition of the Zamindaries in 1949, the suit lands are certainly in what are known as “Ryotwari areas”. Section 7(v)(d) will not be applicable, if the land is separately assessed. This land is certainly separately assessed. Section 7(v)(b), learned counsel for the petitioner contends, cannot apply, because though the land is separately assessed, that separate assessment is not separately recorded in a Collector’s register. What exactly is a Collector’s register has not been made clear. Apparently no attempt has been made in the lower Court to establish or to disprove that the separate assessment was shown in the registers maintained in the village under the authority of the Government and under the authority of the Collector. It is rather difficult to conceive of separate assessment being levied on each of the lands in what was once a permanently settled estate village, but is now a ryotwari village, without there being some register maintained under the authority of the Government and that of the Collector, which would show, that separate assessment. Since section 7(v)(a), section 7(v)(c) and section 7(v)(d) cannot apply to the lands in question, which are separately assessed, the only question is, whether the requirements of section 7(v)(b) have been satisfied. As I have already pointed out, that the lands have been separately assessed is not in dispute. The order of the lower Court will be set aside and the matter remanded for disposal afresh by the lower Court in the light of the observations made above. The learned Munsif will verify if the separate assessments are recorded in any of the registers now maintained in the village, and if they are, if those registers are maintained under the authority of the Government, or of the Collector. If that test is satisfied, section 7(v)(b) alone will apply. In no case can section 7(v)(d) apply. Costs of the Civil Revision Petition will abide the result of the determination of the question by the Court below and will be provided for by it. K.S. ------ Order set aside and matter remanded.