NANDA MAJHI Vs. GOKUL KAMINI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the defendants who are aggrieved by the concurrent decisions of the Courts below by which they have decreed the plaintiff's suit. The question for decision is whether the appellants as raiyat have a right to grow lac on the trees standing on their holding.

(2.) The facts alleged are that the plaintiff is the patnidar of village Damda from before the time of the survey settlement operations which took place about the year 1922. No palas trees fit for lac rearing were found on the lands belonging to the plaintiff which were recorded as khewat No. 2 under the Gorabadi khatian No. 117; but subsequently some palas trees grew up on those lands. On 9-6-1924, the plaintiff settled all the trees standing in village Damda by a registered kabuliat with certain lessees who relinquished the settlement on 6-10-1933 and surrendered all the trees with the lac thereon in favour of the plaintiff.

(3.) The appellants held in that period some lands in this village as ordinary tenants; but owing to a dispute between the appellants and the landlord, Mukunda Majhi, the predecessor of the appellants, claimed some khas lands of the plaintiff as within the ambit of his jote, and thereupon Title Suit No. 493/503 of 1928 was instituted by the appellants in the Court of the Munsif of Purulia, but that suit was compromised on 6-3-1929, and a compromise decree was drawn up on the terms that the lands in suit were recognised to be tenancy of the appellants at Rs. 5 a year. This compromise decree having been found to be unregistered has not been relied upon by the Courts below, or before us.