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1. This revision petition relates to Title Suit No. 7 of 1957 in the Court of the Munsif, Parlakimedi. The petitioner is the defendant in the said suit and the opposite parties, the plaintiffs in the said suit, are her step sons. There was a suit (No. 11 of 1945) in the Court of the Subordinate judge, Srikakulam, in which the parties to the present dispute were parties. That suit was one by the present petitioner, as the plaintiff, for maintenance, for arrear maintenance, for division of certain properties and for certain other claims of money.

In the said suit, there was a decree based on compromise between the parties, in which 3 garces of paddy per annum were fixed towards the running maintenance of the petitioner, and a stipulated amount of money was payable to her for all outstanding claims. The said annual maintenance was payable at the petitioner's place within the jurisdiction of Srikakulam Court and certain landed properties situated under the same jurisdiction were charged for the maintenance so decreed. It may, however, be noted that the parties had landed properties, both within the jurisdiction of the Court of Parlakimedi and the Court of Srikakulam, at the time.

The plaintiffs instituted the present suit for reduction of the annual maintenance payable by them to the petitioner, on the ground that by introduction of the Madras Estates Abolition and Conversion to Ryotwari Act of 1948, the Orissa Tenants Protection Act of 1948 and the Orissa Tenants Relief Act of 1955, their income from the landed properties had substantially reduced, and under such change of circumstances, the maintenance fixed for their step mother was to be substantially reduced. The petitioner raised two preliminary points -- one regarding the jurisdiction of the Court at Parlakimedi and the other regarding the maintainability of the suit. The learned trial court disposed of both the preliminary objections against the petitioner.

2. Coming to the question of jurisdiction, it may be noted that, under Section 20, clause (c), C. P. C. the cause of action arose partly within the jurisdiction of the Court of Parlakimedi and partly within the jurisdiction of the Court of Srikakulam, inasmuch as the different Acts passed by the State Governments of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh were alleged to have substantially affected the income of the plaintiffs arising out of their lands situated in either States, on the basis of which the quantum of maintenance had been agreed to between the parties in the previous suit Section 20, C. P. C. is a residuary section, and it is conceded that if no other section applied, then the plaintiffs' case was covered by Section 20, Clause (c), C. P. C. But what had been urged before the Court below and was also urged before me is that Section 16, C. P. C. applied, inasmuch as the maintenance decree was a charge upon the immovable property within the jurisdiction of the Court of Srikakulam, and the determination of the present maintenance would affect the said charged property.