1. A decree for the payment of Rs. 633, to the appellant Atmaram was passed on the 19th January 1921 against the respondent Radha Bai as the legal representative of her deceased husband Baliram, who died about the year 1912. She inherited from him an occupancy field of 350 acres, a house said to be worth Rs. 500 and a kotha worth about Rs. 50, all in the same village, and probably also some moveable property. On an application for execution of the decree filed in January 1924 the house and kotha were attached. Of the various reasons put forward on behalf of Radha Bai for the contention that both buildings should be released from attachment we are now concerned with one only. That is, that they are exempt from attachment under Clause (c), Section 60(1) of the CPC, as she is an agriculturist and they belong to her and are occupied by her.
2. It appears that Radha Bai has never cultivated the holding herself, but has sub-let it every year since her husband's death.
3. She has no bullocks, having given away a pair she once owned to her son-in-law, but she seems to have two cows which she keeps in the kotha that was attached. She lives in the house. The learned District Judge has held that both buildings are exempt from attachment because Radha Bai is an agricultutist and does occupy them.
4. The matter is not quite as simple as that. Unless we read the words “as such” at the end of Clause (c), Section 60(1) of the CPC, or rather read the word “him” at the end of it as meaning “the agriculturist as such” we get impossible results. One would be the exemption from attachment of the residential mansion of a millionaire banker who is also a tenant of a few acres of land. That is perhaps an extreme case, but others of the same kind are easy to imagine. If a man who is mainly an agriculturist and cultivates his own land has a grocery shop in a house other than his residence, even in the same village, would the shop building be exempt from attachment? It certainly would on the learned District Judge's reading of Cl. (c).
5. It seems, however, on the same reasoning as that in Amolaksao v. Eknath [1920] 16 N.L.R 89 , 55 I.C 481, that the house and kotha attached in this case must be regarded as occupied by Radha Bai as an agriculturist. The subleases she gives are not and cannot be for more than one year at a time, and even if she does in fact go on sub-letting the land all her life, it can still be said that it is necessary for her to live in that house to look after the sub-letting of the holding, that is, for the purposes of agriculture. As a matter of fact the possibility, if not the probability, of her starting to cultivate the land herself is greater than that of the judgment-debtor in the case that has been mentioned.
6. It has been urged for the decree-holder that, in view of the smallness of the holding, the kotha is sufficient for all Radha Bai's needs as an agriculturist, even if she ever takes up the cultivation of it herself, and still more if she continues to sub-Jet it, and therefore the house ought to be considered liable to attachment. Such a distinction ought certainly to be made where it is posible, as in the imaginary case of the agricultural grocer already mentioned, but it is impossible to make it here. The dividing line between what Radha Bai does and does not need as an agriculturist would pass through her residential house, as it could hardly be said that even a tenant of no more than three and a half acres would be sufficiently accommodated in a kotha meant and used for cattle.
7. The appeal will be dismissed, but, in the circumstances, in appears that the decree-holder ought not to pay the costs of the judgment-debtor. It will accordingly be ordered that each party shall pay its own costs in all three Courts.
8. Appeal dismissed.