SHAMA KANT LAL Vs. (MAHANTH) RAMDHAN PURI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court at Patna dated 1 July 1927, which varied a decree of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Gaya, dated 29 August 1923. The present suit was instituted on 30th November 1921, by Mohunt Dalmir Puri, in whose place the present respondent was substituted on 2nd August 1922, against eight defendants. Defendant 1 having died, his interest passed to his sons, who were defendants 2 and 3, and on 14 August 1923, the defendants were re-numbered. Defendants 1 to 6 are now represented by the present appellants, and defendant 7 was Babu Nageshwar Prasad, but service of the uramoos on him was not proved and he did not appear to resist the suit, and his name was removed from the record under the judgment of the subordinate Judge.

(2.) The respondent is the proprietor of a 12 annas share in Mauza, Baghore, district of Gaya the remaining four annas being the property of one Kameshwar, who gave a mukarrari of his four annas to one Gyani Lal Nageshwar formerly defendant 7 succeeded to the mukarrari interest of Gyani Lal, and is in possession as maukarraidar under Kameshwar. In the Record of Rights, which was published on 2 December, 1915 the respondent was recorded as the proprietor of 12 annas of the mauza, and defendants 1 to 6 were recorded as mukarraridars in respect of four annas comprised within the respondent's 12 annas under a "verbal" mukarrari.

(3.) In the plaint the respondent challenged the correctness of the entry in the Record of Rights and alleged that the defendants had no legal right to possession and that their possession was against right and as of "trespassers." The prayer of the plaint was for possession and for mesne profits, and, in the alternative, that a proper and fair rent might be assessed upon the lands, if the Court found that the defendants had any tenancy rights in the lands in question. He alleged that his 12 annas share was let in oral thika to Nageshwar from 1902 to 1915, and that Nageshwar paid rent up to 1914 at the annual rate of Rs. 1,955; that he had recently learned that Nageshwur, in league with the appellants, had joined them in four annas out of the twelve annas oral thika without the respondent's knowledge or consent; that the appellants had got themselves recorded as holding such four annas as oral mukarrari in the Record of Rights in 1915; and that the respondent first came to know of the matter after the publication of the Record of Rights.