ADIT NARAYAN SINGH Vs. SMBINAPANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the decree-holders who are aggrieved by the appellate order passed by the learned District Judge of Patna, dated 2 May, 1940, by which he reversed the order of the learned Munsif in an execution case started by the appellants.

(2.) It appears that the decree-holders and the judgment-debtors were cosharer landlords of village Bariarpur in which each was interested to the extent of eight annas. The collection of the village was in charge of a common patwari, and the arrangement between the parties was that if at the end of the year it was ascertained that any sum larger than what was actually the share of one of the cosharers was paid over by the patwari, the other cosharer would be entitled to recover from his cosharer the excess amount which was so discovered on accounting together with interest at the rate of one per cent, per mensem.

(3.) The decree-holder's case was that they discovered some time in 1936 or 1937 that a sum of Rs. 1400 was paid over to the judgment-debtors by the patwari in excess of what were the legitimate dues of the judgment-debtors. Accordingly they instituted a suit for the recovery of that sum, but the matter was compromised between the parties and a compromise decree was passed on 14th July 1937, for a sum of Rs. 1247. It was also provided in that compromise decree that the amount which was thus fixed as payable by the judgment-debtors should be paid in this way: Rs. 600 was to be paid in cash in January 1938, Rs. 200 was to be paid on or before 20 March 1938, and the balance of Rs. 447 odd was to be liquidated by the execution of a deed of assignment for the arrears of rent due to the judgment-debtors in favour of the decree-holders.