R. Govind Reddy And Others v. R. Lakshminarayan Reddy Alias Sadan Reddi And Another

Srinivasachari, J.:— This revision is directed against the finding of the learned District Judge, Secunderabad, on issue No. 3 raised in the suit.

2. The suit was by the respondent herein for partition of joint family properties mentioned in the schedule annexed to the plaint alleging that he and one Niranjan Reddi are the sons of one Rajagopal Reddi. The plaintiff stated that the said Rajagopal Reddi, defendant No. 1, Govind Reddi and defendant No. 9, Satya-narayan Reddi were the sons of one China Krishna Reddi and that they formed a joint family. He alleged that he and his brothers were together entitled to ⅓ share in the joint family properties as being the sons of one of the three members of the joint family. Inasmuch as his brother Niranjan Reddi did not join him in the suit, he impleaded him as the 16th defendant and prayed for a decree for 1/6 share in the joint family properties mentioned in the schedule. The suit was resisted mainly on the ground that there had been a previous partition and that the parties, were in possession of such of the properties that fell to their share in the partition. It was further contended that among the properties mentioned in the schedule to the plaint, the District Court at Secunderbad had no jurisdiction in regard to the properties mentioned in schedule II-A of the plaint. The contention was that the plaintiff was not entitled to sue for the partition of inam and atiyat property and as the properties mentioned in schedule II-A were all atiyat and inam properties, the District Court at Secunderabad, had no jurisdiction to entertain the claim in regard to them. This plea was the subject matter of issue No. 3 which is to the following effect:—

“Has the civil Court got jurisdiction to entertain the suit in respect of the atiyat property involved in the suit”.

3. This was tried as a preliminary issue by the learned District Judge and after hearing arguments of both sides he came to the conclusion that the inam mentioned in schedule II-A to the plaint had been abolished and consequently vested in the State after the coming into force of the Abolition of Inam Act of 1954 and after that the civil Courts could not be said to have been precluded from trying the cases for determining a share in such lands. He, therefore, negatived the plea raised by the defendants and held that the civil Court had jurisdiction to entertain the suit in regard to the seri lands. It is this order that is now sought to be attacked. Learned counsel argued that sub-section (2) of section 21 of the Jagir Abolition Regulation which empowered, the civil Courts to determine all disputes relating to the income from the jagir (commutation) cannot apply to the case of inams.

4. It would be necessary to refer to the relevant legislation in force at the various periods of time. In the State of Hyderabad there were different kinds of tenure of lands called jagirs, inams and maktas. The ruler of the State was held to be the owner of all the lands. He granted usufructuary rights in such lands to others. One such usufructury right was granted subject to particular conditions and this particular form of tenure was called a jagir and the grantee was termed’ the jagirdar. The incidents appurtenant to such a grant were (a) the grantee had a right to usufruct with no power of alienation, (b) his heirs did not automatically succeed to the property; every time there was re-grant by the Sovereign of the lands, ordinarily, in favour of the heir under the law. The fiction of law was that the estate reverted to the grantor on the death of the jagirdar and the grantor re-granted it to the heir; (c) no suit could be filed in respect of this grant in a civil Court without the permission of the grantor.

5. The Jagirs came to be abolished by the Hyderabad Abolition of Jagirs Regulation No. 49 of 1949 by which, on the date notified in the Gazette the jagirs came to be abolished and the administration of the jagirs was made over to the Government. Further from the appointed day the jagir was included in the Diwani. The institution of jagirdari came to an end and the erstwhile jagirdar or his heir became entitled only to the commutation amount. With regard to the adjudication of claims relating to a jagir or to any share in the income thereof, section 21(2) of the aforesaid Regulation enacted that such claims should be filed in the appropriate civil Court. This section made it clear that the forum for the investigation of claims to a share in the jagir, or to any share in the income thereof shall be the appropriate civil Court notwithstanding any existing law to the contrary. The atiyat Court which hereto before had jurisdiction to entertain such claims ceased to have any jurisdiction after the coming into force of the Regulation. Section 23 of the Regulation, it must be noted, makes the provisions of the Regulation applicable notwithstanding the fact that the provisions of the Regulation were repugnant to the existing law, in this case the existing law being the Atiyat law. Section 23 reads as under:—

“This Regulation shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in any existing law, and where an existing law is repugnant to the provisions of this Regulation, it shall, to the extent of the repugnancy, cease to have effect”.

6. The result was that in so far as claims pertaining to jagirs were concerned, there was no bar to their being filed in the civil Courts and the condition to obtain the previous sanction of the Government which was necessary under the previous law was removed.

7. Learned counsel sought to urge that inams stood on a different footing and the right to an inam could not be compared to the provisions relating to the claim of jagir commutation amount as provided for in the Jagir Abolition Regulation. The case of inams, in our opinion, is not anything different from that of jagirs as the learned counsel for the petitioners would try to make out. ‘Inam’ is defined as land held under a grant made by H.E.H the Nizam or other competent grantor and continued or confirmed by virtue of a muntakab or other title deed coupled with the remission of the whole or part of the land revenue thereon either as a gift or a grant and with or without the condition of service. These inams were enfranchised and converted into pattadari holdings (ordinary land held on patta) by virtue of Act VIII of 1952 (The Hyderabad Enfranchised Inams Act, 1952). The effect of this legislation was that all inams were enfranchised on and from the date specified by the Government by a notification in the Gazette and as soon as the inam was enfranchised, the inamdar became a pattedar and the land was thereafter to be held as patta land. Section 8 of this enactment says that the law applicable to patta lands would apply to such enfranchised inams notwithstanding the Atiyat law or section 102 of the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950. It may be mentioned that this Act was in the statute book till 1955 when it was replaced by the Hyderabad Abolition of Inams Act, 1955, Act VIII of 1955, which came into force on the 20th of July, 1955. Section 3 (x) of this Act is important. It reads as follows:—

“3. (1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any usage, settlement, contract, grant, sanad, order or other instrument, act, regulation, rules or order having the force of law and notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order of a civil, revenue or atiyat Court, and with effect from the date of vesting, all inams to which this Act is made applicable under sub-section (2) of section 1 of this Act shall be deemed to have been abolished and shall vest in the State.”

8. All the inams are abolished and they vested in the State, They become liable to payment of land revenue which they were exempted from before enfranchisement. These inams were shed of the peculiar characteristics which belonged to them before the said abolition. These consequences followed notwithstanding the existence of any law to the contrary. Therefore, in all respects, what consequences followed as a result of the Abolition of the Jagir. Regulation of 1949 with regard to jagir, followed in so far as these inams were concerned.

9. Learned counsel made an unsucessful attempt to show that section 10 of the Abolition of Inams Act contemplated an enquiry by the Collector which meant that the ordinary civil Court had no jurisdiction. Section 10 of the Act is to the following effect:—

“The Collector shall examine the nature and history of all lands in respect of which an inamdar, kabiz-e-kadim, permanent tenant, protected tenant or non-protected tenant, claims to be registered as an occupant under sections 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, as the case may be, and decide—

(a) in whose favour, and in respect of which inam lands the claims should be allowed;

(b) the land revenue and the premium payable in respect of such lands.”

10. In our opinion, the learned counsel has misunderstood the true import of the section. As the section reads, the enquiry by the Collector is confined to determining the claims of an inamdar, khabis-e-kadim, permanent tenant and protected tenant or non-protected tenant, to being registered as occupant under sections 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the Act. As to in what cases an inamdar is entitled to be registered as an occupant is provided in section 4. Similarly as to in what circumstances a khabis-e-kadim would be entitled to get himself registered as occupant is mentioned in section 5. Sections 6 and 7 deal with cases of the rights of permanent tenants and protected tenants in such inams, to be recognised and registered as occupants while section 8 deals with the registration of non-protected tenants as occupants. It is the enquiry into those matters and the final determination thereof that is entrusted to the Collector under section 10 of the Act. The inams ceased to exist and they vested in the Government. That result is hot lost by reason of the provisions of section 10 of the Act. It is futile to contend that because an enquiry is to be made by a revenue authority in regard to certain matters relating to those lands, the civil Court must be deemed to have no jurisdiction in those matters. The civil Court is not going to declare as to who is going to be declared the occupant. That is left to the revenue Courts alone. The civil Court would merely declare as to who are all entitled to the property.

11. Our attention was invited to the Firman of H.E.H the Nizam which governed a Crown grant. In pursuance of this Firman, a resolution or Ghasti was issued in 1328-F. being Resolution No. 7 of 1328-F. (1919). This resolution enjoined that before ever a suit was instituted in a civil Court in regard to a Crown grant, it was essential that the party approached the atiyat department or the Crown Grant Department for permission to sue. We must straightway point out that this resolution can have no application to the case now under consideration for the obvious reason that we are not dealing with Crown grants. As has already been stated, what was previously a Crown grant, that is to say an inam. or jagir, ceased to be such by reason of the two. enactments, viz., the Abolition of Jagir Regulation of 1949 and the Abolition of Inams Act of 1955 and, therefore, no question of permission can arise. It is not necessary to dilate upon the interepretation put upon the Resolution No.7 of 1328-F. issued in pursuance of the Firmari of H.E.H the Nizam. Suffice it to say that by a series of judicial decisions and finally by the decision of the Hyderabad Judicial Committee in Munwar Begum v. Najib Mirza1, it has been held that the permission of the Grown Grant Department is essential only where it affects the grant, otherwise not. That is to say, if the matter affected the right of the Sovereign to the grant or it affected the grant itself, then alone would it be necessary to obtain the permission of the Crown Grant Department and not in all cases. There is no question of the grant being disputed or anything which goes to affect the grant. Under those circumstances the necessity to go to the Revenue Court for permission before filing a suit cannot ariste. Further, there can be no question of the revenue Court having exclusive jurisdiction in this matter because, what was once the inam has ceased to be such and the land is to be treated as any patta land.

12. Learned counsel incidentally invited or attention to a decision of the Supreme Court in D rector of Endowments of Hyd rabad v. Akram AH A.I.R 1956 S.C 60, and relied upon the observations of the Supreme Court that the Nizam was an absolute Sovereign regarding all domestic matters at the time when the Fi???man was i sued and his wo d was law. This observation, in our opinion, has no relvancy to the matter under consideration. No doubt the position was that before the two enactments referred to in this judgment were enacted, the Firman of H.E.H the Nizam was the law which directed permission to be obtained in regard to suits with regard to jagirs and inams. But where the legislative power of the Nizam had been delegated to the Military Governor and in pursuance of such delegated power the Military Governor passed the Abolition of Jagir Regulation, this regulation became the law and in 1952 the Legislative Assembly passed the Enfranchisement of Inams Act and that governed the proceedings in regard to all inam lands. It has to be observed that the present suit is only for partition of joint family properties and the Court would, when passing a preliminary decree, declare the rights of the plaintiff in such properties, and appoint a Commissioner for working out the details and thereafter pass a final decree. It cannot be said that even a declaration to the effect that the plaintiff is entitled to a particular share in the properties mentioned in schedule II-A attached to the plaint could not be given. For all the above reasons we are of opinion that this petition should be dismissed. This revision petition is accordingly dismissed with costs. Advocate's fee Rs. 50.

13. Revision dismissed.