Case: Navinchandra Babubhai Nagarsheth And Ors Vs. Bombay Revenue Tribunal And Ors

2. The appellants had claimed compensation under several heads based on different grounds but two of them survive. The first is that the appellants are entitled to compensation for loss of assessment payable to them by inferior holders, a special class of tenants holding lands from them. The Act does not expressly provide for compensation in respect of such lands. Sub-section (1) of S. 17 of the Act, however, provides that if any person is aggrieved by the provisions of the Act abolishing any of his rights to or interest in property and if compensation for such abolition has not been provided for, such person may apply to the Collector for compensation. The appellants base their claim on this section. Sub-section (5) of this section makes the right under sub-s. (1) unavailable in a certain case and the question is whether the appellants claim fell within it. Now the sub-section is in these17 (5) : - Nothing in this section shall entitle any person to compensation on the ground that any inam village or inam land which has (sic.) wholly or partially exempt from the payment of land revenue has been under the provisions of this Act made subject to the payment of full assessment in accordance with the provisions of thethis sub-section applies only to a certain kind of claim for compensation in respect of an inam village exempt from payment of land revenue. The appellants say that their inams were not of this kind and so the sub-section does not affect their claim. According to them, their inams consisted of a grant of land revenue only. The nature of an inam depends on the sanad or the terms of the grant. The High Court held on a construction of the sanads that the inams were grants of the villages with exemption from land revenue, because the words of the grant conveyed the soil and rights over trees, water, mines, etc. This view is obviously correct.

Court's reasoning:
No doubt since the introduction of the survey the amounts payable by the tenants to the inamdars were all assessed under the Code. The nature of the assessment payable was not, however, altered thereby nor did it become land revenue. The survey fixed the amount payable by a tenant to the inamdar and gave him certain rights. It also conferred certain benefits on the inamdar in the matter of the realisation of his dues. The fact that the assessment was made in the same way as land revenue made no difference. It did not change the right to the assessment. Notwithstanding all this the inamdar remained the grantee of the soil and a person who was not liable to pay revenue in respect of it and likewise the tenant remained liable as before to pay rent to the inamdar.5. Furthermore, the distinction between the two kinds of grants is well recognised and has been maintained by the Act by specifying in S. 2 (1) (e) that an inam means a grant of a village with exemption from liability to pay land revenue and also a grant of land revenue only. The appellants contention would in effect wipe out this distinction and cannot, therefore, beinamdars right to appropriate to himself the assessment fixed by the survey and collected from the inferior holders existed only because he was exempt from the liability to pay land revenue. If he was not so exempt, then what he collected from the inferior holders would have to be paid over to the Government. It would follow that the loss for which the appellants claim compensation was really occasioned by the lands being subjected to revenue by S. 5(2)(b).The fact that the inamdar has not himself been made liable for the revenue in respect of the lands held by inferior holders makes no difference. The substance of the matter is that the inamdar has been deprived of his right to the assessment from the inferior holders and the inferior holders have been made liable to pay that assessment to the Government. So in actual result the inamdar has been deprived of his right to the assessment because the land has been made subject to payment of land revenue. His claim for the loss of assessment is, therefore, in reality based on the ground that the lands which were free from revenue have been made subject to it. Sub-section (5) of S. 17 does not provide that the bar mentioned in it operates only when land revenue is made payable by the inamdar.8. It also seems to me that any other interpretation would lead to a result which could not have been intended. It is not in dispute that for the loss of rights in respect of lands in his own possession excepting those mentioned in S. 7 or any lands in possession of persons holding from him other than as inferior holders an inamdar is not entitled to compensation. It is admitted that such compensation could not be allowed in view of S. 17(5). It would be difficult to imagine a reason for the legislature to have made a distinction between such lands and lands in the possession of inferior holders.9. The other part of the claim concerns the right to forfeit the inferior holders tenancies for non-payment of rent and the right of reversion in respect of them. These the appellants have no doubt lost. The Collect for asked the appellants to produce evidence in support of their claims under this head.They failed to do so. They could not even cite one instance of the exercise of any such right. It would be impossible to value the loss in respect of them as no material for doing so is on the record nor was furnished by the appellants. No compensation can, therefore, be assessed or awarded for the loss of these rights.