BINDESHWARI AHIR Vs. BISHWANATH SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's appeal in a suit for specific performance of a contract to grant a lease of seven agricultural plots to the plaintiffs. The contract, according to the plaintiffs, had been entered into on 22nd September 1937, by the late Maharaja of Banaras, under which he agreed to grant this lease to the plaintiffs on certain terms which are mentioned in para. 3 of the plaint. These terms shortly were that the holding in Schedule A was to be leased to plaintiff 4 and the holding in Schedule B was to be leased to plaintiff's 1 to 3 these plaintiffs paying Rs. 1655/- to the Maharaja as nazrana. As a matter of fact, a similas amount was previously due to the Maharaja as arrears of rent from plaintiff 4 which the other plaintiffs 1 to 3, undertook to pay to him under the contract of lease. There was, according to the plaint allegation, a further understanding that the lease was to take effect from the beginning of the agricultural year following the contract in that behalf.

(2.) The plaintiffs, no doubt, deposited Rs. 1200/- in two instalments out of the sum of Rs. 1655/which they had undertaken to pay to the Maharaja. Their case was that, when they saw the Naib Tahsildar on 29th August 1939, and offered to pay the remaining sum of Rs. 455/-the latter gave out that the record not having arrived the amount could not be accepted. In the result, it was not deposited.

(3.) About a year after this episode, the suit giving rise to the present appeal was filed on 18th September 1940, for a specific performance of the contract of lease and, in the alternative for Rs. 1200/- paid by the plaintiffs under the contract of lease and Rs. 168/- as interest. The defendants to the suit were : the Banaras State through Mr. C. R. Peters, President, Council of Administration, Banaras State' as defendant a and some other persons also arrayed on the same side. These others were persons who were claiming rights in the plots in dispute by virtue of a lease alleged to have been granted to them by the Council of Administration on receipt of a premium of Rs. 3000/-.