HAR SARAN DAS Vs. HARBANS SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Letters Patent appeal by the plaintiff zamindar against a judgment of a learned single Judge of this Court upholding the dismissal by the lower appellate Court of the suit of the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued for damages for cutting certain trees on plot 249/1 which is within the zamindari of the plaintiff. The transactions in regard to this number are as follows: In the settlement of F. 1275 (1871 A.D.) the No. 249 was recorded as a sir of Bahadur Singh, a co-sharer, and it is not argued that entry was incorrect. There was no entry that the land at that time was grove. The land has still been recorded as sir and comes within the definition of sir in Section 4(12)(a), Act 3 of 1901 (U.P. Land Revenue Act), which is land recorded as sir in the last Record-of-Rights framed before the commencement of this Act and continuously so recorded since, or which but for error or omission would have been so continuously recorded.

(2.) The next transaction in regard to this land is an auction sale on 20 January 1921, on a decree passed against Bahadur Singh proprietor. On this decree the entire zamindari share of Bahadur Singh was sold, and it was purchased by one Ajudhia, who subsequently sold it to the plaintiff. Subsequent to that sale on 1st July 1925, Bahadur Singh sold his exproprietary tenancy in this grove to the defendants 1 and 2. The question is whether defendants 1 and 2 by this purchase from Bahadur Singh acquired the right to cut the trees in this grove.

(3.) The only argument which has been addressed to us on Letters Patent appeal is ground 1 in the memorandum of appeal, because the character of the land ceased on its conversion into a grove, and Bahadur Singh did not become an exproprietary tenant,