BACHU SINGH Vs. BILASO KUER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is by defendants first party against the concurrent judgments and decrees of the two courts below decreeing the suit of the plaintiffs for declaration that plot No. 366 of village Sahopur is, a tank and plot No. 367 a Karha and are sources of irrigation in respect of paddy and rabbi crops grown on the lands to the north of the tank in Kita Nonphar and the landlords (defendants second party) had no right to settle the aforesaid two plots with the appellants, and the latter had no right to cultivate, and for an injunction directing the appellants to restore the two plots to their original state.

(2.) Briefly stated, the case of the plaintiffs was that plot No. 366 was a reservoir receiving water from various plots, including the Karha plot No. 367, as detailed in the plaint, and the tenants of Kita Nonphar, including the plaintiffs, had been irrigating their lands from time immemorial by cutting the northern Alang of the tank. In the year 1950, the defendants first party obstructed to the exercise of the said right by the plaintiffs and other tenants by filling up the Karha (plot No. 367) and cutting the western Alang of the tank in plot No. 366. They also started cultivating these two plots and asserted that they had taken settlement of these two plots from the landlords (defendants second party).

(3.) The defence of the defendants first party, that is, the appellants, was that the two plots became culturable soon after the publication of the record of rights in the year 1916 and the landlords started cultivating them; that no one had any right of any irrigation from these two plots and that they took settlement from the landlord on 14th December, 1941, which was legal and valid.