DUKHA MANDAL Vs. WNGRANT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a suit brought under Section 103 of the Bengal Tenancy Act to rectify an entry made in the Record of Eights. On the (sic), the question is whether the Judge the lower Appellate Court acted contrary (sic) in accepting jamabandi papers which produced for the purpose of showing there had been a variation in the rent in respect of the holding at a time since (sic) Settlement.

(2.) The tenants produced receipts for showing payment of uniform rent for 20 years. That threw on the landlords the onus of showing that there had been a variation since the time of the Permanent Settlement. They produced for that purpose certain jamabandi papers. The papers began as long ago as the year 1838.

(3.) The argument that has been addressed to us is that the jamabandi papers by themselves have never been treated as an independent evidence, and that, therefore, the Judge of the lower Appellate Court was wrong in regarding them as evidence as to the rent variation many years ago. Now, in these papers, entries were made by the landlord s agent behind the back of the tenants. Prima facie, they would not be evidence against the tenants, unless they were made so by statutes. The learned Vakil for the respondents relies on Section 32, Sub-section 2, of the Evidence Act and contends that as they were entries made in the ordinary course of business by the landlord s agents, they become relevant as evidence against the tenants. They having been made so many years ago, it must be conceded that they were made by persons who are dead and cannot be called.