JOTINDRA MOHAN GHOSH Vs. KEDAR NATH GHOSH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a suit brought by the plaintiffs-appellants for the ejectment of the defendant-respondent from two parcels of land in Mouzah Sonatakari in the District of Hooghly. It is admitted here--as it apparently was also in the lower Appellate Court--that the action was bound to fail, if the case was governed by the provisions of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, but that it ought to have succeeded, if it was not. The only question for my decision, therefore, is as to whether both the Courts below were right in holding that Act applicable.

(2.) The facts, in so far as they are material and have been found, are these. The respondent is himself a raiyat of the village, in which he had, and has, both a homestead and an agricultural holding. The two parcels in suit are situated near his old homestead, and he acquired them separately by purchase from the respective raiyat to whose homesteads they originally belonged. He has since been cultivating them and paying rent to the appellants who are the landlords: and there is no local custom or usage, such as is referred to in Section 182 of the Tenancy Act, to be considered in connection with the matter.

(3.) In these circumstances, I should have thought it hardly possible seriously to suggest that the law applicable is not the Tenancy Act. But the learned Vakil for the appellants contends that it is not that. Act, but the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, that ought to have been applied; and the following I understand to be his argument.