DINA NATH DAS Vs. GANESH CHANDRA SAHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The land involved in this litigation is a doba or ditch covered by dag 707. The plaintiffs sought to recover possession of the doba on the allegation that it was their khas patit land. The defendant, on the other hand, set up a jote right in respect of that plot, and asserted that they held their tenancy under the plaintiffs for which they paid rent, at first, Rs. 4-2 which was subsequently increased to Rs. 4-8, the 6 annas representing the rent of the plot added to the original area of the holding. There was a previous rent suit between the parties in which the plaintiffs sought to recover rent at the original jama of Rs. 4-2, and that suit was decreed at that rate, but there is a concluding observation in the judgment of the appellate Court that the question of land appertaining to the holding will be left open.

(2.) The principal piece of evidence on the side of the defendants, then, as now, is Exhibit B, a dakhila (rent receipt) purporting to have been granted by the plaintiff's son in which plot No. 7 was specified among other plots. The first Court thought the dakhila to be not genuine and refrained from deciding the further question, namely, whether the dakhila is binding on the plaintiff. The Munsif decreed the plaintiff's suit, but the Subordinate Judge has reversed that decision.

(3.) In second appeal, the contentions are three in number, first, that the Subordinate Judge has wrongly thrown the onus on the plaintiff, and that he is in error in saying that there was no evidence on the plaintiff's side on the question of parcel or no parcel; secondly, that the previous decision inter partes is, virtually, res judicata in the questions whether the plot No. 707 formed part of the defendants tenancy; and, thirdly, that the Subordinate Judge has not decided whether the receipt, if genuine, was binding on the plaintiffs.