MOTI Vs. UDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal by the defendant appellants against the concurrent decisions of the S.D.O. Ballabhnagar and the Additional Commissioner, Udaipur, in a suit for ejectment under Artical 8 Group B Schedule I, the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Procedure and Jurisdiction Act. The plaintiff respondents in their representative capacity on behalf of the whole village filed a suit against the appellant defendants with the allegation that the Jagirdar of the village had given 3 bighas 7 biswas of muafi land free of rent to the appellants for filling a cattle water trough in their village about 50 years back. The defendants continued to preform the service since the date of the grant but had stopped doing so, for the last four or five months. It was, therefore, payed that as the defendants had failed to render service in lieu of the muafi to the village community they should be ejected from the muafi land. The defendants admitted the grant of the muafi but averred that they had been rendering service as stipulated in the grant, but the villagers wanted to confiscate the muafi and eject them for personal reasons. It was also alleged that as the grant was made by the Jagirdar the villagers were not competent to bring this suit against them. On the request of the plaintiffs, the trial court issued a notice under rule 7 of the Rules made under sec 8 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts Procedure and Jurisdiction Act for the information of all the residents of the village interested in the suit to be impleaded either as a plaintiff or as a defendant.

(2.) The trial court after recording the evidence of the parties observed that the land in question was given to the appellants as muafi chakri with the stipulation that they would fill the village water trough for the use of the cattle and as the appellants had ceased to perform this service they were liable to be ejected therefrom, under the provisions of Article 8, Group B of Schedule I. In appeal before the learned Additional Commissioner, the appellant met the same fate and the lower court was upheld.

(3.) We have heard the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the parties and also perused the record of the case. The judgment of the lower - courts has been impugned primarily on the ground that the suit was not maintainable,under Art. 8 Group B of Schedule 1 for the ejectment of the Appellants for detrimental act or omission or breach of condition unless it was proved that the relation between the parties was that of land -lord and tenant. This contention must prevail as we find that it is a common ground between the parties that the muafi was granted by the Jagirdar and not the respondent who cannot for obvious reasons be considered as the landlords of this assignment. A muafidar is not a tenant within the meaning of sec. 31 Chapter V of the Kanune Mal Mewar 1947. There is also no suggestion to the affect that the applicants ever paid any rent in cash or kind to the respondents to bring them within the category of a tenant. In the alternative it was also urged on behalf of the respondents that the status of a muafidar holding land in lieu of service was that of tenant kharam -dar.We not find any such provision in the Kanune Mal of Mewar nor does any such provision exist in the Kavaaid muafi riyasat Mewar Svt. 2001. We, therefore, hold that neither the respondents were the land -lords of this land nor were the appellants tenants of this land. A suit under Art. 8 Group B of Schedule I, as observed above could not lie unless this relationship existed between the parties. Both the lower courts have failed to appreciate this point and committed an irregularity in assuming jurisdiction in deciding this suit which should have been dismissed on this preliminary objection as contended by them in their written statement and memorandum of appeal.