BIPRO DAS KHASNAVIS Vs. PACHI BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a suit brought by the plaintiff to recover arrears of rents and cesses. The plaintiff sues as the surviving administratrix to the estate of her son Arman Sana deceased, and the point that has been argued before me in this appeal is whether the suit is barred by virtue of the provisions of Secs.15 and 16 of the Bengal Tenancy Act. Both the lower Courts have held that as the plaintiff claimed rent not as heiress of Mohamed Arman Shah but as administratrix to his estate, it was not necessary to comply with the provisions of these sections, and in so finding it appears to me that the judgments of those Courts are correct. The words used in Secs.15 and 16 do not appear to me to refer to the case of representation but to the cases of beneficial succession. That this is so would appear to be shown also by the definition of "succession" in the Act as including intestate and testamentary succession, and by the circumstance that one does not speak of succession in the case of representation and lastly by a passage in the judgment in the case of Khetter Mohan Pal v. Pran Kristo Kabiraj 3 C.W.N. 371, where the learned Judges say: It is the duty of the persons succeeding by inheritance to a permanent tenure to notify the succession." There may or may not be reason so far as the policy is concerned for distinguishing the case of a representative from that of persons succeeding as beneficiaries, but all that I have to determine is the meaning of the term used. Farther, it has been pointed out to me by the learned pleader who appears for the respondent that the appellant is not in a position to raise this question at all because the respondent was in possession of the tenure when the appellant purchased the raiyati interest, and the appellant was, therefore, inducted into possession by the respondent and he cannot be heard in those circumstances to take an objection to the respondent's suit on the ground that the respondent has failed in doing something which, he alleged, the law required him to do as regards the respondent's superior landlord. The result is that the appeal must be dismissed with costs.