SHEIKH SAMDANI Vs. KAMALAKANT JHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals arise out of 15 rent suits; and the judgment now given governs all of them.

(2.) I am of opinion that the learned District Judge was right in his dealing with the objection relating to the appointment of a guardian of the minors. It is argued that the lower Appellate Court should have held that the plaintiff No. 1 was not competent to institute a suit on behalf of the minor plaintiffs, that the only person who could institute a suit on their behalf was the guardian appointed by the Court, and, that as the minors were alleged to be necessary plaintiffs in the case, the suit was void and should have been dismissed. I think, however, that although the order appointing a guardian of the minors was originally a good order, when one of these minors came of age then the guardianship ceased ipso facto as regards him. As there cannot be a guardian of minors in the case of a joint Mitakshara family in which there are also adults, the guardianship ceased also as regards the other minors.

(3.) Upon the second question, I think that the learned Munsif was right and that his judgment should be restored. It has been argued before us that the appellants were not tenants at all. They are, it is said, cultivating the respondents own nigjote land on the respondents landlords behalf, and not for themselves, and that, therefore, the return was strictly accurate and came within Part I to Schedule A of the Bengal Cess Act, the land being land in the actual occupation and cultivation of the person submitting "the return." In short, the contention was that these persons were not raiyats, that is to say, persons cultivating land for themselves, but were labourers working on the. land for the respondents and receiving in return, as their wages, portion of the produce of their labour. Now, if this were so, then, as the learned Pleader for the appellant has pointed out, the whole of the argument of the lower Courts was thrown away, the case proceeded, in fact, on the assumption that the defendants were tenants and they were sued for rent as such.