RAJAH SATRUCHARLA RAMABHADRA RAZU Vs. ZEMINDAR OF MERANGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE matter for determination in this case, which arises on a question of disputed succession between the parties, is whether the zemindari of Merangi is partible or impartible. The Appellant, the present registered zemindar of Merangi, maintains that the estate, which is described on the record as consisting of eighty-six villages with their hamlets, situated below the Ghauts, and adjoining the zemindari of Jeypore, is impartible; and he complains of the decisions of the District Court of Ganjam, and of the High Court at Madras, in both of which Courts the judgments have been to the effect that the zemindari is partible, and consequently divisible between him and the Respondents, for whom no appearance was made at the hearing of this appeal.

(2.) THEIR Lordships are of opinion that the judgments of the Courts of First and Second Instance are right. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the facts, which are fully stated in the judgments complained of. For the purpose of this decision it may be assumed, as it was by the Subordinate Judge-the High Court say there is no evidence of it-that the zemindari was at one time held under military tenure from the Rajah of Jeypore, when it was granted to an ancestor of the present Appellant. It may further be assumed, though there is little if any evidence to warrant the assumption, that the tenure continued to be the same after the estate had been taken by force and incorporated in Kurupam zemindari, and subsequently when by conquest it again became part of the Vizianagaram zemindari which was dismembered in 1795. Taking it, in accordance with the argument of the Appellant's counsel, that impartiality was the rule then applicable to the estate, their Lordships are clearly of opinion that the subsequent dealings with the estate, the nature and terms of the grants under which it has been held throughout the present century, the absence of proof of any usage or practice of impartiality in the succession to the estate, contrary to the ordinary Hindu law of succession, and the character of the estate, which is in no way distinguishable from an ordinary zemindari subject to the payment of a fixed assessment of revenue, all clearly lead to the conclusion that the zemindari is now a partible estate in a question of succession.

(3.) WHAT occurred in 1835, however, makes the determination of the case perhaps even more clear. The estate had again come into the possession of the Government. It had been exposed to public sale for payment of debt due by the zemindar, and might have been bought by any third party as purchaser. The Government, however, bought it, and held it for some time. During this time the dewan of the former zemindar, and certain of the doratanams, performed an important service to the Government, who had offered a considerable pecuniary reward for the capture or putting down of certain rebels who had caused much disturbance in the district. They succeeded in putting down the rebellion. Instead of the pecuniary reward to which they became entitled, they begged that a new grant of the zemindari might be given to the son of the former zemindar (then still in life), who was a boy of only nine years of age, and the grant was accordingly made to this boy in the usual terms of a sannad-i-milkeat istimirar, and his heirs, with the ordinary power of sale or disposal of the property in whole or in part, and concluding with the words: Article 14. "Continuing to perform the above stipulations, and to perform the duties of obedience to the British Government, its laws and regulations, you are hereby authorized and empowered to hold in perpetuity to your heirs, successors, and assigns, at the permanent assessment herein named, the zemindari of Merangi." It appears to their Lordships that here again, for a second time, there was such a dealing with the estate, as in the circumstances, and having regard to the terms-of the grant, clearly shows that there was no intention to create an impartible estate, assuming there was power to do; so, or to restore an estate previously impartible. The circumstances were entirely different from those which occurred in the Hunsapore Case 12 Moore's Ind. Ap. 1, where an estate, in itself an important raj or principality, was simply confiscated to the Government and again given out to the nearest heir of the next line. As was observed in the judgment, "the transaction was not so much the creation of a new tenure as the change of the tenant." In the present instance the grant followed on a purchase of the property by the Government; it was given, on the solicitation of persons who had a claim against the Government, to one who, though no doubt the son of the former zemindar, might have had no such grant but for the intervention of those persons who were attached to him; and there is nothing in the terms of the grant to support the contention of the Appellant,-on whom the onus lies of proving that this is the exceptional case of a zemindari impartible in its nature,-and nothing to prove a usage or custom of succession, throughout the operation of the grants of 1803 or 1835, contrary to the ordinary rule of the Hindu law.