Madras High Court
Panadai Pathan And Anr. vs Ramasami Chetti And Three Ors. on 1 March, 1922
Equivalent citations: (1922)ILR 65MAD710
JUDGMENT Spencer, J.
1. I feel no doubt that the Subordinate Judge was right in treating a lease of lands for growing casuarina trees to be used for fuel as a lease for agricultural purposes within the meaning of Section 117 of the Transfer of Property Act.
2. With due deference, while accepting that the case was rightly decided, I am unable to follow the opinion of Bhashyam Ayyangar, J., in Murugesa Chetti v. Chinna-thambi Goundan (1901) I.L.R. 24 Mad. 421, that the word "agriculture" in its more general sense comprehends the raising of Vegetables, fruits and other garden products as food for man and beast, if the learned Judge intended thereby to limit it to the raising of food products. For to so restrict the word would be to exclude flower, indigo, cottou, jute, flax tobacco and other such cultivation. For the purposes of that particular case, which related to a lease of betel gardens, considering the policy of favouring agriculture, upon finding that they produced a form of food, the connexion between agriculture and the production of food may have seemed important, but such a limitation is not supported by the definition of agriculture in the Oxford Dictionary which is: "the science and art of cultivating the soil, tillage, husbandry, farming (in the widest sense)". This dictionary notes that a meaning restricted to tillage is rare. In Bouvier's Law Dictionary "agriculture" is defined as the cultivation of the soil for food products or any other useful or valuable growths of the field or garden.
3. Anderson's Dictionary of Law quoted by the learned Judge is not available for verifying whether the growing of other than food crops was intended by the author to be excluded.
4. Shephard, J., who sat with Bhashyam Ayyangar, J., conceded that the earlier decision. Kunhayen Raji v. Maijan (1894) I.L.R. 17 Mad. 98, to which he was a party, which decided that the lease of a coffee garden wan not an agricultural lease, was wrong.
5. I am equally unable, with respect, to agree with the narrow definition of Sadasiva Ayyar, J., in Seshayya v. Rajah, of Pittapur (1916) 3 L.W. 485, and Rajah of Venkatagiri v. Ayyapareddi (1915) I.L.R. 38 Mad. 738, that agriculture means the raising of annual or periodical grain crops through the operation of ploughing, sowing, etc., though the decision may be perfectly sound so far as they excluded pasture lands from "ryoti land" for the purpose of the Madras Estates Land Act.
6. The learned Judge's definition would exclude sugarcane, indigo, tea, flower, tobacco and betel cultivation from agriculture.
7. In my opinion agriculture connotes the raising of useful or valuable products which derive nutriment from the soil with the aid of human skill and labour; and thus it will include horticulture, arboriculture and silviculture in all cases where the growth of trees is effected by the expenditure of human care and attention in such operations as those of ploughing, sowing, planting, pruning, manuring, watering, protecting, etc.
8. The Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is dismissed with costs.
Ramesam, J.
9. In Murugesa Chetti v. Chinnathambi Goundan (1901) I.L.R. 38 Mad. 421, it was held that a lease of a land for growing a betel nut garden was for an agricultural purpose. In the course of the judgment it was observed by Bhashyam Ayyangar, J., that the term "agriculture" was used, in its more general sense as "comprehending the raising of vegetables, fruits and other garden products, as food for man and beast." The learned Judge's observations were intended to bring the betel gardens under the term "agriculture" and not to exclude something which was not food for man or beast. The definitions in Webster's Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary show that the term has a still more general sense than the general sense he referred to, but it was unnecessary for his purpose to consider it. In Bouvier's Law Dictionary the term is defined as "the cultivation of soil for food products or any other useful or valuable growths of the held or garden, etc." Wharton's Law Lexicon adopts the definition of "agriculture" in 8 Edw. VII, c. 36, as including "horticulture, forestry and the use of land for any purpose of husbandry, etc." In 10 Edw. VII, c. 8, Section 41, it was defined so as to include the use of land as "meadow or pasture land or orchard or osier or wocdland, or for market gardens, nursery grounds or allotments, etc." In 57 and 58, Vict., c. 30, Section 22, the term "agricultural property" was defined so as to include agricultural land, pasture and woodland, etc. In Jagadisk Chunder Sanyal v. Lal Mohan Poddar (1911) 13 C.L.J. 318, 321, the definition of Webster was approved and two American cases were also mentioned as having followed that definition, though it is not clear for what purpose. To give a narrower interpretation to the term and to confine it to the raising of products used as food for man and beast will exclude all cultivation of fibrous plants such as cotton, jute and linen and all plants used for dyeing purposes, such as indigo, etc., and all timber trees, and flowering plants. I do not think this is the intention of the Act. The rearing of a casuarina plantation requires some preparation of the ground and subsequent care by watering the plants. The cases in the Estates Lands Act, Rajah of Venkatagiri v. Ayyapareddi (1915) I.L.R. 38 Mad. 738, Seshayya v. Rajah of Pittapur (1916) 3 L.W. 485 turn on the special policy of the Act see Section 6(4) and cannot help us here. In Devaraja Naicken v. Ammani Ammal (1915) 3 L.W. 319, the point was not argued, being conceded by the learned vakil, and with great deference I think that the learned Judges misconstrued the judgment of Shephabd, J., in Murugesa Chetti v. Chinnathambi Goundan (1901) I.L.R. 24 Mad. 421. I am therefore of opinion that a lease for seven years for a casuarina plantation is an agricultural lease within the meaning of Section 117 of the Transfer of Property Act and is therefore not governed by Section 107 of the Act. The Appeal therefore fails and is dismissed with costs.