MUKBUSOR RAHAMAN CHOWDHURY Vs. RAJ LAKHI DEBYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Chittagong, dated 21st May, 1918, in a suit brought by the plaintiffs for the ejectment of the defendants from certain alluvial land. In the plaint as it originally stood there was an alternative prayer for the assessment of a fair and equitable rent in respect of the land But with the leave of the Court that prayer was subsequent withdrawn. The prayer for ejectment has been allowed and the appellants before us are the defendants.

(2.) The plaintiffs are wards of the Court of Wards suing by their next friend, the General Manager, Court of Wards, Chittagong. The defendants were tenants of the plaintiffs under a patta dated the 26th March, 1906. The learned Subordinate Judge has held and in the result we shall agree with him--that the patta created a term of ten years on the expiry of which the plaintiffs had the option of evicting the defendants. The defendants contend that the patta entitles them to permanent rights of occupation or occupancy subject to a revision of the rent at the end of the first ten years, and thereafter from time to time as the parties might agree, or in default of agreement, in accordance with the provisions of the rent law.

(3.) The area covered by the patta measures more than 45 drones or about 800 bighas. Learned Counsel for the defendants began by referring to an amalnama of the year 1204. That document, however, refers to a schedule, and when we asked for the schedule, it was not forthcoming. He next produced an extract from maghi chitta of 1839 which was not produced in the Court below and which we could not admit in evidence. The value of the extract depends on the identity of the land to which the extract relates with the patta land as in the case of the amalnama, the identity is not apparent on the face of the document and is not established by evidence. Moreover the Maghi Chitta of 1839 is well-known in Chittagong, and if the extract is relevant, it should have been exhibited in the Trial Court.