CHARU CHANDRA GHOSE Vs. KUMAR KAMAKHYA NARAIN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court at Patna reversing the decree of the Additional Subordinate Judge of Hazaribagh and decreeing the suit brought by the Court of Wards on behalf of the minor zamindar of Ramgarh for a declaration that the suit Village forming the Jagodih estate are an ordinary jagir of the Raj resumable on failure of the direct male line of the grantee, and are not a shamilat or shikmi taluk of the Ramgarh estate as recorded in the khewat or Record of Rights of the zamindari made by the Settlement Officer under the provisions of the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act of 1908. The adjoining parganas of Chai and Champa, one to the north and the other to the south of the Barrakur river, form part of the Ramgarh zamindari in the Hazaribagh District of Chota Nagpur. The Jagodih estate is situated in Chai, and is one of several estates in these parganas which were recorded in the settlement as shamilat taluks, that is to say, taluks in which the talukdars or proprietors now pay the Government revenue to the zamindar instead of paying it direct to Government. Although this dependence is strictly limited, these estates have also acquired the name of shikmi or belly taluks, as being now in the maw of the zarmindar, who has sometimes been tempted to claim them as portions of his own estate held on jagir tenure and resumable in certain events. In recent years the question has assumed increased importance as affecting the ownership of minerals.

(2.) In this, as in the Barsote case, Surendra, Nath Karan Deo V/s. Kumar Kamakhya Narain Singh (1929), not reported at present, the Raja of Ramgarh is seeking to establish that this estate is held under him on jagir tenure. In the Barsote case the Board, agreeing with the Subordinate Judge, allowed the defendants' appeal and dismissed the 'suit on the ground that as no suit had been brought in the revenue Court to rectify the entry in the khewat, that entry under S.87, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, was to be presumed to be correct until it was proved to be incorrect, and the plaintiff had failed to discharge the onus imposed upon him, In this case also the plaintiff is subject to the same onus, and the question before their Lordships is whether the appellate Court was right in holding on the evidence before them that he had satisfactorily discharged it.

(3.) It is alleged in the plaint that Maharaja Bishun Singh, the proprietor of the Ramgarh Raj, which Comprises several parganas including pargana Chai, granted certain villages, including the suit villages, in jagir to Raja Lall Khan, the predecessor-in-interest of defendants 1 and 2 under a patta of 1762. No rent, it is stated, was fixed at the time of the grant, but it was fixed subsequently at Rs. 656-12-0. and a, kabuliyat dated Kartek Sudi-1839, Sambat (1782), was taken from the said Raja Lall Khan. It was further pleaded that the question whether the estate was a jagir was raised in a suit between the predecessors of the parties in 1792 and was decided in the affirmative, and that the question is now res judicata