JUDGMENT Daniels, J.
1. This application raises a question of jurisdiction. The plaintiff is a grove holder and the defendant the zemindar. The suit was brought on the allegation that the defendant being entitled to one fourth of the fruits of the grove had wrongfully appropriated one half of the fruits. The suit was filed in ^he Small Cause Court claiming the value of the fruits wrongfully appropriated. The defence was that the suit was congnisable only by the Revenue Court, being a suit contemplated by Section 36 of the Tenancy Act, and that therefore, the jurisdiction of the Civil Court was ousted by Section 167 of the same Act. Section 36 covers claims by a tenant from whom any sum or produce had been exacted by his landlord in excess of the amount recoverable from him as an arrear of rent. The learned Judge of the Court below framed an issue on the question of jurisdiction but omitted to decide it. The plaintiff's answer to the objection, how ever, is that the verb "to exact" implies something which the tenant has been compelled to pay against his will and does not apply to a case in which the landlord-has gone to the grove and" gathered the produce for himself. It is not disputed that the produce of a grove which the grove holder is liable to render to the zemindar comes within the definition of rent, this having been held in more than one case, e.g. Rugkubir Rai v. Madho 41 Ind. Cas. 908 : 15 A.L.J. 623 : 39 B. 605 The dictionary meaning of the verb "to exact" is in accordance with the interpretation placed on it by the respondent. The primary meani as given in Murray's Oxford Dictionary is to demand and enforce payment of it does not cover the direct appropriation of produce on the spot. I have been referred to an old decision in Gureeboollah Puramanick v. Fukeer Mahomed Kholoo 10 W.R. 2031 1 B.L.R. XIII s.n in which the same view was taken. I have little doubt that the intention of the framers of the Tenancy Act was to include such a case as the present within the jurisdiction of the Revenue Court, and if Section 36, as framed, does not cover it, it is merely because the possibility of such a case was not thought of at the time when the section was drafted. I must, however, interpret the section as it stands.
2. In the course of the argument an alternative plea has been put forward to the effect that the suit was excluaed from the jurisaiction of the Small Cause Court by Article 35 in or Article 43A of the Second Schedule to the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act. This plea is an after thought and was not taken in the grounds of revision. Moreover, niter reading the plaint, I do not find that the allegations made therein clearly amount to a criminal offence. The revision, therefore, fails and I accordingly dismiss it with costs.