Kailashi Chandra Mahanti and Others vs Badal Manjhi and Others

Bucknill, J.—This was a second appeal from a decision of the District Judge of Purulia, dated the 19th April 1928, by which he reversed a judgment of the Additional Munsif of Purulia, dated the 21st November 1922.

The plaintiffs are here the appellants. They brought a suit to recover possession of some land in the possession of the defendants. Their case was that the defendants'' ancestors had at one time been their (the plaintiffs'') tenants. On the 15th December 1909, however, the plaintiffs in execution of a money-decree which they had obtained against the defendants'' ancestors sold this holding and themselves bought it. The sale was confirmed on the 24th January 1910, and on the 15th August of the same year the plaintiffs state that they obtained delivery of possession through the Court. According to the frame of the suit and to the evidence which was given on behalf of the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs had been in possession of the property from the time when they obtained delivery of possession through the Court up till the record-of-rights which was finally published in 1921. Notwithstanding contest the Assistant Settlement Officer by his order, dated the 17th July 1920, came to the conclusion that the defendants wore raiyats and wore entitled so to be entered finally in the record-of-rights. Before the Assistant Settlement Officer one of the plaintiffs stated that he had settled the land with the defendants on sharing produce rent terms; but at what elate this settlement took place is not indicated. The Settlement Officer at any rate was quite satisfied that the plaintiffs were not in possession. The plaintiffs thereafter brought this suit.

Their story that they had been in possession of the property since the date when they obtained delivery of possession through the Court in 1910 up to the time when the defendants obtained entry of their names as raiyats in the record-of-rights was held to be absolutely false. The defendants were held to have been in possession both before and after the alleged sale and continuously through-out all material times. However, the Munsif thought that the defendants had not proved the relationship of landlord and tenant between themselves and the plaintiffs. It is of academic interest to point out that it would seem that the sale took place one day before the coming into operation in this area of the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act by which u/s 41 thereof the raiyati holding could not have been sold in execution of a money-decree. The Munsif thought that the sale stood and that the plaintiffs, as auction-purchasers, were entitled, as they had brought their suit within 12 years of the date of the sale, to obtain possession of the land.

The District Judge, however, considered the matter somewhat differently. He pointed out that the presumption that the defendants were in the position of tenants to the plaintiffs existed owing to the entry of themselves as such in the record-of-rights; but he also further remarked that the story which the plaintiffs put forward as their case (namely; that they had been in possession from the date of delivery of possession to them by the Court in 1910 up to the date when the record-of-rights declared that the defendants were raiyats) was absolutely false; and that on the contrary it was perfectly clear that the defendants had been in possession at all material times; consequently the District Judge indicates that the presumption that the defendants through all these long years were in possession as tenants of the plaintiff was extremely strong. He shows that the plaintiffs bad produced no sort of evidence to rebut the double presumption thus arising from the long possession by the defendants and from the record-of-rights itself.

He also observed that the defendants admittedly held other raiyati lands in the village. He remarks that, admittedly, prior to the sale the defendants were tenants of the plaintiffs and comments that it is incredible that the defendants should have remained in possession for all these years on the land of the plaintiffs without paying rent to them and without being in the position of the plaintiff''s tenants. On this ground, therefore, the District; Judge decreed the appeal.

The only argument which could be put forward by the learned advocate for the appellants is that upon which the Munsif based his decision, namely, that as the plaintiffs had purchased the holding in 1909 and had brought their suit within a period of 12 years from that date, they were entitled to recover possession even though the defendants had been in possession for the whole of those 11 years and odd months. This argument would have undoubtedly had considerable force had it been the case which was put forward by the plaintiffs. This was not, however, the case of the plaintiffs as I have indicated above. But, apart from this, the argument ceases to be of any value when it is found as a fact by the District Judge that, throughout the whole of this period and notwithstanding the sale, the defendants had been in fact in possession of the land as raiyats of the plaintiffs. That finding seems to me to dispose of the case of the appellants.

I see no reason to differ from the decision to which the District Judge has come. I think he has looked at this case from the proper angle and has come to a correct decision. Under those circumstances in my view this appeal must be dismissed with costs.