BENODE BEHARI GHOSAL Vs. SHEW KAMAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent obtained at the instance of the plaintiff in a suit for declaration of title and recovery of possession. Such a suit was decreed concurrently by the two courts below but was dismissed by our learned brother Janah, J., on a second appeal preferred by the contesting defendants.

(2.) The plaintiff's case shortly was that two brothers, Santosh and Atul, held a rayati holding under the then landlord Sushital Kumar Ghosh who on July 12, 1954 obtained a rent decree against the said two brothers in Rent Suit No. 150 of 1954. That decree was put into execution in Rent Execution Case No. 165 of 1954 and the holding being put to auction sale was purchased by the plaintiff on April 21, 1955. The sale was confirmed on May 21, 1955 and as one Mahadev Ahir put forward a claim of korfa tenancy under the judgment-debtor raiyats, the plaintiff started a proceeding under Section 167 of the Bengal Tenancy Act and on January 28, 1958 annulled the said incumbrance. Since then the plaintiff was in possession of the suit land until March 1956 when the present dofendants forcibly dispossessed him from the suit land appertaining to the said holding purchased by the plaintiff. Hence by filing the suit the plaintiff claims declaration of his title and recovery of possession.

(3.) In the written statement the defendants raised various defences including one to the effect that the suit is not maintainable. They further claimed that the interest of the korfa tenant, Mahadev Ahir, could not be annulled and that they on February 27, 1956, purchased the suit land from Mahadev and had been in possession all along by vitrue of their rights as such a purchaser.