JATINDRA KUMAR BANERJEE Vs. AJIT KUMAR BANERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is on behalf of the plaintiffs and arises out of a suit for rent brought against three defendants. The suit was in respect of a plot of land which, the plaintiffs alleged, appertained to Niskar No. 1191 of the 24 Parganas Collectorate. Defendants Nos. 1 and 2 were the old tenants but the plaintiffs alleged that defendant No. 3 was giving out that he had purchased a portion of the lands in execution of a mortgage decree and had thus acquired the right, title and interest of defendants Nos. 1 and 2. The suit was contested by defendant No. 3 alone, and the principal defence put forward by him was that the suit land did not appertain to Niskar No. 1191 at all but appertained to Touzi No. 109 of the same Collectorate with which the plaintiffs had no concern.

(2.) The Record of Rights records the plaintiffs as owners of Niskar No. 1191 and the lands in suit are shown as appertaining to that Niskar. As against this evidence of the plaintiffs' title, the defendant No. 3 relying upon a disability of the plaintiffs to recover the rents, created, according to him, by Section 20 of the Cess Act, contended that assuming that the plaintiffs were the landlords of the lands in suit still they were debarred from recovering the rent inasmuch as in a cess return submitted by them on the 21st March 1918 with respect to Niskar 1191, they had not included the lands of this particular tenancy.

(3.) Both the Courts below have held that the plaintiffs are the owners of the superior interest of the lands in suit in the right of their ownership of Niskar No. 1191. They have, however, accepted the plea in bar constituted fey Section 20 of the Cess Act. Accordingly, the suit has been dismissed by both the Courts below.