RAM CHARAN TRIPATHI Vs. MADAN MOHAN JANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case, the plaintiffs brought a suit upon the basis that in 1909, defendant 1 gave a lease to their father of some 99 bighas of land in the Sunderbuns and that in 1917, after the plaintiffs father had died, defendant 1 dispossessed the plaintiffs from this land so far as regards 50 bighas of it and in 1920 leased out the same again to defendant 2. The suit was brought in 1927 and it has engaged the attention of several Courts; but the actual position at which it has now arrived is that it has been found upon a local inquiry that a quantity of land which was taken possession of by defendant 2 in 1920 did belong to the land let out to the plaintiffs father.

(2.) When the matter came before the learned Subordinate Judge on the last occasion, the main point for his determination was whether the suit on that footing was barred by the special limitation provided by the schedule to the Bengal Tenancy Act. That question depends upon whether or not the plaintiffs are raiyats under the lease which their father obtained in 1909. The Subordinate Judge was of opinion--quite correctly--that it was for the defendants to make out their plea of special limitation and he held, upon a consideration of the patta and of the incidents of the transaction, that he was not satisfied that the defendants had shown that the plaintiff's were raiyats. Accordingly he held that the suit was within time and decreed it.

(3.) On first appeal before the learned District Judge of the 24 Pargannas, the learned Judge pointed out that the only question apart from the question of the quantum of damages was whether it was open to the defendants to take the plea of special limitation and he considered the question whether or not under the patta the plaintiffs were raiyats. He came to the conclusion that the lease was a raiyati lease because it granted a right to hold the land for purposes of cultivation and, on that basis, he gave effect to the plea of special limitation and. dismissed the plaintiffs suit.