`Judgment :- 1. This second appeal has arisen in a suit for purappad for the year 1139 (1963-64). Under a panayakachit the counter mortgage deed dated April 21, 1938, executed by the defendant's late father in favour of the Vellakkat Mana the annual rental of the property has been fixed at 1068 parahs of paddy and 1068 sheaves of straw, out of which the mortgagee is allowed to appropriate 133 parahs of paddy for his interest on the mortgage amount of Rs. 800/- and 260 parahs of paddy in reimbursement of Rs. 100/- that he may pay towards revenue of the land. The Vellakkat Mana surrendered their interest in the property to the plaintiff, entitling him to the purappad under the panayakachit; and on June 2,1961, the rights and liabilities under the panayakachit had been divided between the defendant and his sister in equal moieties, the suit property being the defendant's moiety therein. On October 3,1964, the plaintiff issued a notice to the defendant instructing him not to pay the revenue any further and not to deduct from the rent 130 parahs of paddy in reimbursement of revenue. Averring that the defendant did not pay the revenue or the rent for the year, the plaintiff instituted this suit for recovery of the commuted value of 4671/2 parahs of paddy and 534 sheaves of straw at Rs. 3.25 per parah of paddy and Rs. 4/- per 100 sheaves of straw. The defendant contended, inter alia, that the plaintiff is not entitled to revoke the agreement in the panayakachit allowing him to appropriate 130 paras of paddy for Rs. 50/- he had paid for the revenue of the year. The Munsiff, Manjeri, found the defendant to have paid Rs. 50/- for revenue of the year 1139 M. E. and allowed him to deduct 130 parahs of paddy in reimbursement thereof, and decreed the rest of the plaint claim with proportionate costs. On appeal by the plaintiff, the Additional District Judge. Kozhikode, held the defendant to be an agent of the plaintiff for paying the revenue out of the plaintiff's funds, and such agency, not being one coupled with interest, to be revocable unilaterally by the plaintiff, and therefore decreed the suit as prayed for with costs in both the courts. Hence this second appeal by the defendant. 2. Kozhikode, held the defendant to be an agent of the plaintiff for paying the revenue out of the plaintiff's funds, and such agency, not being one coupled with interest, to be revocable unilaterally by the plaintiff, and therefore decreed the suit as prayed for with costs in both the courts. Hence this second appeal by the defendant. 2. That by the panayakachit the rent of the property the entire property of which the suit property is a moiety is fixed at 1068 parahs of paddy (the straw apart) and that out of such rent the mortgagee has been allowed to appropriate 260 parahs of paddy in reimbursement of Rs. 100/- paid for revenue, are conceded. The plaintiff does not desire that agreement in reimbursement to continue, but the defendant insists on its continuance obviously because paddy, which was selling at about half-a-rupee per parah on the date of the panayakachit has become unavailable nowadays even for Rs. 5/- per parah. In the plaint, filed in 1964, the paddy is priced at Rs. 31/4 per parah and the Munsiff has observed: "The defendant does not dispute the correctness of the claim for price of paddy at the rate of Rs. 3.25 per parah". Even at Rs. 3.25 per parah 130 parahs of paddy would be worth Rs. 4221/2. Thus the effect of the covenant for reimbursement is that for Rs. 50/- the defendant can appropriate 130 parahs of paddy worth over Rs. 420/-. The question here is whether the defendant can insist on the continued performance of that covenant. He says that the plaintiff cannot resile from the express agreement made in the panayakachit. I am afraid this is the very plea that Shakespeare exposed to the resentment of the society in Shylock's assertion: "When it is paid according to the tenor. There is no power in the tongue of man To alter me: I stay here on ray bond." Since then the courts have assumed jurisdiction to relieve parties of unconscionable bargains on various grounds. Under S.22 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877, "the Court may properly exercise a discretion not to decree specific performance: I. Where the circumstances under which the contract is made are such as to give the plaintiff an unfair advantage over the defendant, though there may be no fraud or misrepresentation on the plaintiff's part. II. Under S.22 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877, "the Court may properly exercise a discretion not to decree specific performance: I. Where the circumstances under which the contract is made are such as to give the plaintiff an unfair advantage over the defendant, though there may be no fraud or misrepresentation on the plaintiff's part. II. Where the performance of the contract would involve some hardship on the defendant which he did not foresee, whereas its non-performance would involve no such hardship on the plaintiff". 3. When the panayakachit provided that the defendant might pay Rs. 50/-towards revenue and get it reimbursed from the rent due to the plaintiff, it constituted the defendant the plaintiff's agent to make the payment on behalf of the plaintiff out of the plaintiff's funds in his hands. Besides such constitution of agency, the panayakachit contains a provision for the defendant's reimbursement of the amount paid for Rs. 50/- he expends he is allowed to appropriate 130 parahs of paddy out of the plaintiff's rent. It is the effect and validity of the latter provision that arises for determination here. True, on the date of the panayakachit when paddy was selling at about half-a rupee per parah it was a fair agreement. But when the relevant state of things changed very much and the value of paddy has risen 7-8 fold, if not above, it is extortionate to insist on appropriation of 130 parahs of paddy in return for Rs. 50/-. In the language of S.22 of the Specific Relief Act, it is exactly a case where the performance of the agreement would involve considerable hardship on the plaintiff, which be did not foresee, and where its non-performance would involve no hardship on the defendant. It is therefore an agreement which the defendant cannot specifically enforce, or, in other words, which the plaintiff may repudiate with immunity. 4. Counsel for appellant contends that the validity of a contract has to be judged by the circumstances of the time when it was made, and not by subsequent events, and if the contract was fair and valid when it was made, it should not now be struck down on account of a subsequent change in circumstances for which neither party is responsible. No doubt, the Privy Council has said so in Ganga Bakksh v. Jagat Bahadur Singh (22 IA. No doubt, the Privy Council has said so in Ganga Bakksh v. Jagat Bahadur Singh (22 IA. 153) where the suit was by a donor to have a deed of gift, executed by him, declared illegal and void on the allegation that the defendant as well as his counselors, taking advantage of the plaintiff's old age and of his illness and disabilities separated him from his son's relatives and induced him to sign the deed and have it registered and that he was not aware of its effect and contents. In that context the Privy Council observed: "Whether the transaction was one that should be set aside as inequitable would depend upon the circumstances at the time when it was made, not upon subsequent event." But it has to be remembered that "every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved, since the generality of the expressions which may be found there are not intended to be expositions of the whole law, but governed and qualified by the particular facts of the case in which such expressions are to be found." (Halsbury L. C. in Quinn v. Leatham 1901 App. Cas. 495. 506). The contract in Ganga Bakhsh's case was an entirely executed one, and not executory. In the present case, the contract of reimbursement embodied in the panayakachit was executory and is recurrent, its revocation by the plaintiff in 1964 was only prospectively in regard to obligations de futuro, and the question is whether that revocation is lawful. As I have already indicated, under the altered conditions of the present times, the part of the contract that was and is to be performed since 1964 is so prejudicial to the plaintiff as to be felt unconscionable, while its cancellation involves no prejudice to the defendant except that he would not be getting unmerited profits that were not in contemplation at the time the covenant was made. The rule of law is certainly that neither of the parties can by his own act or default defeat the obligations which he has Undertaken to fulfil; but this rule is not an absolute one and has to be reconciled with exceptions that justice demands. The doctrine of frustration by an over-riding event is one such exception that has come to stay. The doctrine of frustration by an over-riding event is one such exception that has come to stay. The material alteration in the state of things on which the fairness of a contract depends, is, in my opinion, another such exception. Such a material alteration in the state of things, on which the contract is based, would make the contract void for the future, because, in the new state of things the old contract entails such a different set of consequences that it becomes a new contract far different from what the parties really agreed to. What is provided in the instant panayakachit is mere reimbursement 130 parahs of paddy worth about half-a-rupee per parah for Rs. 50/-, taking into account the normal fluctuations of market; but today 130 parahs of paddy worth far above Rs. 400/- in return for Rs. 50/- is not a mere reimbursement, but a transaction of high profit which was not the intention of the parties at the time they executed the panayakachit. The following citation in M/s Alopi Parshad v. Union of India (AIR. 1950 SC. 588 at 593-4) from the speech of Viscount Simon in British Movietonews Ld. v. London and District Cinemas Ld. (1S62 AC. 166 at 185) is pertinent here: "The parties to an executory contract are often faced, in the course of carrying it out with a turn of events which they did not at all anticipate a wholly abnormal rise or fall in prices, a sudden depreciation of currency, an unexpected obstacle to execution, or the like. Yet this does not in itself affect the bargain they have made. If, on the other hand, a consideration of the terms of the contract, in the light of the circumstances existing when it was made, shows that they never agreed to be bound in a fundamentally different situation which has now unexpectedly emerged, the contract ceases to bind at that point not because the court in its discretion thinks it just and reasonable to qualify the terms of the contract, but because on its true construction it does not apply in that situation." I think the present case comes within the latter observation in the above quote. What the parties have provided in the panayakachit is for a mere reimbursement and not of a bargain entitling one party to gain anything at the expense of the other. What the parties have provided in the panayakachit is for a mere reimbursement and not of a bargain entitling one party to gain anything at the expense of the other. It is obvious that the present market-conditions were not in the contemplation of the parties when they entered into the covenant in the panayakachit and that on a true construction of the recital therein it cannot apply in terms to the state of things that came to prevail since 1964. I hold the avoidance by the plaintiff in 1964 of the power given by the panayakachit to the defendant to appropriate 130 parahs of paddy for Rs. 50/- as regards the future was justified and lawful. 5. Counsel contends that the agency created by the direction to pay revenue and get it reimbursed is an agency coupled with interest, as the property has been given to the defendant as security for the mortgage-amount, and the payment of revenue is necessary to preserve the security without damage, and that therefore the agency cannot be unilaterally revoked by the landlord. But, even if that be so, that affects only the direction or empowerment to pay the revenue. The agreement in reimbursement is separable from the contract of agency and it is the latter alone that is found to be unenforceable. Counsel is asked if the defendant would like to continue to pay the revenue with right to bare reimbursement from the plaintiff, reimbursement being a fair return of the actual amount spent with interest thereon for the interval upto repayment. Counsel says that if reimbursement was not to be had as per the terms provided in the panayakachit the defendant is not interested in continuing the agency to make the payment of revenue. In view of that say, the question whether the defendant's agency to pay the revenue of the property on behalf of the plaintiff is one coupled with interest does not arise for consideration here. 6. That the Court is not to uphold or to enforce unconscionable bargains is a proposition which has been settled long ago. In Rajah Mekham Singh v. Raja Rup Singh (20 I. A. 127) the defendant, who had a good title to the property, got worsted in the court of the Subordinate Judge and in the High Court, but had no funds to appeal before the Privy Council. In Rajah Mekham Singh v. Raja Rup Singh (20 I. A. 127) the defendant, who had a good title to the property, got worsted in the court of the Subordinate Judge and in the High Court, but had no funds to appeal before the Privy Council. He therefore approached the plaintiffs for help and sold 1/8 of the property which one-eighth the Subordinate Judge found to be worth "about a lakh of rupees" to them in consideration of their agreeing to meet the expenses of the Privy Council appeal. The plaintiffs had to spend Rs. 783+4759+2000 for the Privy Council appeal. The appeal was successful and the defendant got the entire property; but he refused to surrender the one-eighth that was sold to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs instituted the suit to enforce the sale. The Subordinate Judge dismissed the suit on the ground that the agreement contained in the deed of sale was unconscionable, extortionate and opposed to public policy. The plaintiffs appealed. The High Court held (see ILR.11 All. 118 at 125): ".... judging by the disproportion between the liability which the plaintiffs incurred under the contract and the amount of the reward which they were to obtain in the event of the defendant succeeding in the Privy Council we are compelled to conclude .... that .... the reward which under their contract they were to obtain was excessive and unconscionable (V)e could not enforce this contract in its terms." and gave a decree for the amounts actually spent by the plaintiffs with 20 per cent interest, amounting in all to Rs. 19448 odd. The Privy Council accepted the above dictum, and affirmed the decree of the High Court. 7. In Hussain Bakhsah v. Rahmat Husain (ILR.11 All. 128) in consideration of the defendants' spending about Rs. 368/-, the plaintiffs agreed to return the same and deliver half the property involved in the suit, but later on sued to recover the property from the defendants on the ground that the agreement was illegal and void. The Subordinate Judge found the pecuniary value of the recompense to be nearly Rs. 2, 200/-, or about seven times the outlay, and therefore the agreement 'extortionate and unconscionable, so as to be inequitable against' the plaintiffs, and decreed the suit directing the plaintiffs to "pay the defendants, as compensation for the advances made by them, Rs. The Subordinate Judge found the pecuniary value of the recompense to be nearly Rs. 2, 200/-, or about seven times the outlay, and therefore the agreement 'extortionate and unconscionable, so as to be inequitable against' the plaintiffs, and decreed the suit directing the plaintiffs to "pay the defendants, as compensation for the advances made by them, Rs. 330, with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum". On appeal the District Judge reversed him observing "The lower court has made no allowance for the defendants appellants' labour and trouble. The remuneration, though large, was not in my opinion extortionate, ". On further appeal, the High Court held: "... The recompense secured was out of all proportion to the risk incurred .... The learned District judge dissented from the Court of first instance for reasons which are not sustainable, we find that the contract under which the defendants were to get half the plaintiffs' land in addition to other advantages in return for their pecuniary assistance afforded by them, was unfair, unreasonable and extortionate, and we think that the court of first instance made a proper decision and decree in the case." I would follow the dicta in the aforesaid precedents and hold that the contract for reimbursement in the instant panayakachit has, in the new state of things, and particularly the high rise in price of paddy, become unfair and unconscionable and therefore the plaintiff is entitled to be relieved from it or to revoke it. I would therefore accept the Additional District Judge's decision in the case. 8. In the result, the Second Appeal fails and is dismissed with costs. Dismissed.