RAM CHANDRA SINGH Vs. BHIKHAMBAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal arises out of a suit brought by the plaintiff to recover possession of lands which were given by way of khorposh or maintenance grant by Raja Madan Mohan Sinha, the grandfather of the plaintiff, to Hikim Gopal Sinha, the father of the defendants. Raja Madan Mohan Sinha had three sons, of whom the eldest was the plaintiff's father, and the second was Hikim Gopal Sinha, the father of the defendants. Under the custom observed in the Raj family of Joypore, the entire zemindary passed by the law of primogeniture, on the death of the Raja, to his eldest son, and grants by way of maintenance were made to the younger sons. Raja Madan Mohan died in 1858. The defendants father, the original grantee, Hikim Gopal Sinha, died in 1877, and the plaintiff's father, Raja Kasi Nath Sinha, died in 1885. The present suit was instituted on the 14 June 1905.

(2.) The case for the plaintiff was that maintenance grants being for the support of the individual to whom they were made, terminated on the death of either the grantee or the grantor. Ordinarily, therefore, the grant of the lands in suit to the father of the defendants would have terminated in 1858 or 1877. But the case of the plaintiff was that, after the death of Raja Madan Mohan, Raja Kasi Nath, the father of the plaintiff, out of affection for his brother, allowed him to remain in possession of the lands in suit, and when Hikim Gopal Sinha, the father of the defendants, died in 1877, Raja Kasi Nath allowed the defendants to continue in possession; and that after the death of Raja Kasi Nath in 1885, the present plaintiff, Raja Bhikhambar Sinha, allowed the defendants to continue in possession. Lately, however, they had become adverse to the plaintiff, and, therefore, the plaintiff sought to resume the grant and to recover possession of the property covered by it.

(3.) The main defence set up by the defendants was that the grant was not a khorposh grant at all, but that the defendants and their father held the lands all along in jote lakhraj right.