SIR DOLATSINGJI JASWANTSINGJI Vs. OGHAD VIRA KHACHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question in this appeal is whether defendants Nos. 1 to 30 are "Mulgametis who hold laud directly from Government" within the meaning of Section 2(1)(a) of the Gajarat Taluqdars Act 1888 (Bombay Act VI of 1888) as amended by Section 2(1) of Bombay Act II of 1905, and hence are "Taluqdars" within the operation of the amended Act. The plaintiff contends that this question should be answered in the negative, and sues for a declaration to that effect. The defendants contend for an answer in the affirmative. Mr. Kennedy, the then District Judge at Ahmedabad, decided this point in the defendants favour, and dismissed the plaintiff's suit with costs on March 23, 1916. Hence the present appeal by the plaintiff. The intervening delay is, I understand, accounted for by the necessity of adding the representatives of certain deceased defendants as parties to the suit.

(2.) The question as above stated is hardly indicative of its interesting character. But in fact its investigation has led us to explore the somewhat misty history of the border-lands of Kathiawar in those pre-British days when might was right, and no man's life or property was secure. Jama or tribute used then to be collected by the annual excursions of armed bands led by one who apparently had a financial interest in the amount recoverd for the Peshwas. But a receipt or free pass (Parvana) was given for the amount collected, and this apparently protected the local inhabitants from further exactions for the year in question. Failure to pay however led to extensive ravaging. Apart from the Peshwas-the then paramount Power-one also had to reckon with the hostility of one's neighbours. And in the present case each of the contending parties alleges that it was by the force or fraud of his opponent's ancestors that his own ancestors were obliged to give up those lands or rights which his opponent now enjoys.

(3.) The suit arises in this way. The village in respect of which the defendants 1-30 claim to be Mulgametis is the village of Salangpur situate in the Dhandhuka Taluka of the District of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Though now within British India, it is geographically part of the eastern border of Kathiawar, and is situate some twenty miles to the south-east of Limbdi or Limri as it is sometimes written. Limbdi is the principal town of the Native State of that name, and over that State the plaintiff rules, As is stated in Peile at p. 4: The estates of the Ahmedabad Talookdars may be defined geographically as the border land between Guzerat proper and the peninsula of Kathiawar, and historically as the coast where the debris of the old Rajpoot principalities of that peninsula was worn and beaten by the successive waves of Mogul and Mahratta invasion. But they are part of Kathiawar rather than of Guzerat. Their proprietors are Kathiawar Chiefs. Their communities have the same elements.