RAM SARAN DAS Vs. MAULU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against a judgment of my learned brother Mr. Justice Chakravarti by which he modified the decision of the Subordinate Judge. The facts relevant to the present appeal may be shortly stated thus. The plaintiffs allege that the defendant s predecessor was granted a lease of a piece of land as a homestead in about 1850, that the predecessors of the defendant and after them the defendant have been in possession since then and, the plaintiffs served upon the defendant a proper notice to quit and on that the tenancy has terminated. The plaintiffs, therefore, brought the suit for the purpose of ejecting the defendant from the land.

(2.) The defendant raised several objections, but the plea which it is now necessary to state was that the defendant had taken in the year 1916 a certain piece of agricultural land in the same village from some other landlord which he had been holding as a raiyat. He, therefore, claimed that his tenancy with regard to this homestead should be governed by the provisions of Section 182 of the Bengal Tenancy Act.

(3.) The Munsif passed a decree in ejectment in favour of the plaintiffs. On appeal the Subordinate Judge has reversed that judgment and dismissed the suit. In the course of his decision the Subordinate Judge held, rejecting the defendant s plea of a permanent tenancy with regard to the homestead, that the defendant was not a cultivating, raiyat in respect of the land in. suit and that he could not establish any right under which he was not liable to be ejected. But in another part of his judgment the Subordinate Judge held that the defendant having the status of a raiyat under the Bengal Tenancy Act, the incidents of the homestead land in suit were governed by, the provisions of Section 182 of the Bengal, Tenancy Act and the notice alleged to have been served by the plaintiffs did not, therefore, terminate the tenancy.