TEMWA URAON Vs. RAM URAON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These were suits for recovery of possession on the determination of the plaintiff s ancestral raiyati right to the laud. The plaintiff s case was that the land was his ancestral raiyati and that, during his temporary absence, his wife and children had been dispossessed by the principal defendant in collusion with the landlord. The defendant alleged that the lands had been settled with him. The suit has been decreed, and the defendant appeals.

(2.) It has been argued on his behalf that these were suits for recovery of the possession of land under Section 37, Sub-section 6, of the Chhota Nagpur Landlords and Tenants Procedure Act, 1879, that, therefore, they were not cognizable by the Civil Court, and that the decision was, therefore, without jurisdiction. It is also argued that under Section 42 of the same Act, they were suits instituted under the Act and, therefore, barred by limitation, as they were not instituted within a year of the dispossession.

(3.) The only question which arises in this appeal is whether these were suits under Section 37, Sub-section 6. It they were not suits under that section (and they are not said to be suits under any other sections of the Act), the provisions of Section 42 would have no application to them. The matter appears to be concluded by authority. It was held in Gooroo Doss Roy v. Ram Narain Mitter 7 W.R. 186 : 2 Ind. Jur. (N.S.) 112 : B.L.R. Sup. Vol. 62 by a Full Bench that Section 23, Sub-section 6 of Act X of 1859, which is couched exactly in the same terms as the sub-section quoted above, refers only to possessory suits and does not apply to suits like the present one in which the plaintiff sets out his title and seeks to have his right declared and possession given to him in pursuance of that right. Such suits were held to come within the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts. And, in Saraswati Dasi v. Horitarun Chuckerbutti 16 C. 741 it was held that this was the settled law until the introduction of the Bengal Tenancy Act. The matter is, therefore, no longer in controversy. The appeals are accordingly dismissed with cost.