PITAMBAR LAIK Vs. MATI LAL LAIK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by the plaintiff arises out of a suit for ejectment of the principal defendants, now respondents, from certain lands on declaration of the plaintiff's title thereto. There was also a prayer for mesne profits in respect of the years 1327 to 1329 B. S.

(2.) Plaintiff's case was that the lands in suit belong to him in mourasi panchaki and ghatwali right by virtue of a grant made to his remote ancestor Sobharam Laik by the Raja of Khatra, that thereafter his predecessors were in possession of the said lands in such right long before the time of the Bast Indian Company, their interest being a permanent heritable interest; that sub-leases of the land were granted, and that eventually the lands came into the possession of the plaintiff. After the acquisition of Bengal by the British the ghatwaili right vested in the Government, and since then the plaintiff's ancestors and plaintiff himself had been paying panchaki rent to the zamindar, and had been performing ghatwali duties under orders of the Government as directed by the zamindar. Plaintiff averred that the Secretary of State for India in Council (defendant 15 in the suit and now respondent 24) had no right to deprive him of the lands by dispensing with his services. The plaint contained other allegations as to the circumstances in which the plaintiff came to be dismissed, and affirmed that the Magistrate had no right or jurisdiction to dismiss him from the post of ghatwali and to appoint defendant 1 in his place.

(3.) Defendants 1 and 15 filed separate written statements and contested the suit, They contend inter alia that the plaintiff and his predecessors, who were ghatwals of Ghat Lohat, held the lands in suit in lieu of remuneration for service as ghatwals, that they had no panchaki right or interest of any kind apart from the ghatwali, that the tenures in question are neither permanent nor hereditary in the sense claimed by the plaintiff, that no ghatwal was entitled to succeed by inheritance unless approved and appointed by the Magistrate, that ghatwals possessed the lands by virtue of their appointment, that the payment of panchaki or quit rent is a common incident of some of the ghatwaii tenures in Bankura District, that the District Magistrate of Bankura had power to appoint and dismiss ghatwals, that he dismissed the plaintiff for neglect of duty upon failure to pay a fine imposed upon him for such neglect and that the said order was in due course confirmed by the Commissioner of the Division and the Local Government that such dismissal carried with it forfeiture of the service tenure, that since then plaintiff had ceased to have any right or interest in the land, that defendant 1 was appointed ghatwal in his place and that the civil Court had no jurisdiction to interfere or to make any declaration.