CHALHO SINGH Vs. JHARO SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Subject matter of the litigation which has given rise to this appeal is a tract of 17 bighas of land in mouzah Sripat Ratankhap of which the plaintiffs-appellants seek to recover possession on the ground that it formed their nagdi kasht land. The defendants denied that the land in dispute was the nagdi kasht of the plaintiffs. The Court of first instance decreed the suit. Upon appeal the District Judge has reversed that decision.

(2.) The plaintiffs have now appealed to this Court. On their behalf the decision of the District Judge has been challenged on the ground that he has excluded from consideration two pieces of documentary evidence which are admissible in evidence and had been rightly admitted as such by the Court of first instance. The documents in question, are certain teishkhana papers and a road-cess return.

(3.) In so far as the first document is concerned, it has been contended that it is admissible in evidence upon the authority of the decision of this Court in the cases of Baijnath Singh v. Sukhu Mahton (1891) I.L.R. 18 Calc. 534 and Samar Dasadh v. Juggul Kishore Singh (1895) I.L.R. 23 Calc. 366. In our opinion, the cases upon which reliance is placed are clearly distinguishable and are of no assistance to the appellants. They merely lay down that a teishkhana register prepared by a patwari under rules framed by the Board of Revenue under Regulation XII of 1817, though not a public document, is admissible in evidence if properly proved. In fact, the teishkhana paper is a document prepared in the office of the zemindar by a patwari who is paid by the zemindar but approved by the Collector. It is a register kept for the information of the Collector, but it is in no sense an official record. In the case before us, it was disputed on behalf of the defendants that the person who is said to have kept the teishkhana paper was a patwari approved by the Collector. It was therefore obligatory upon the plaintiffs, before the teishkhana paper could be used in evidence, to prove that it had been kept in due course by the registered patwari. They did not, however, examine Sukhi Lal, the alleged patwari; and the District Judge very properly says that their failure to call this witness shows that it cannot be treated as evidence. In our opinion, the District Judge has not treated the teishkhana paper as inadmissible in evidence. He has rejected it on the ground that it had not been proved to be kept by a registered patwari. This is obviously a valid ground why no reliance should be placed on it.