SRI BHAGWAN SINGH Vs. RAM SUNDAR RAUT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are five Letters Patent appeals from a decision of a learned single Judge of this Court reversing decrees of the lower appellate Court passed in favour of the plaintiff-appellants in five rent suits. The five rent suits were brought by the plaintiff-appellants to recover rent from the respondents in respect of sarahmoian tenancies which they held. The defendants admitted that they were fixed rate tenants, but they alleged that the claim was for an amount in excess of the rent payable. The learned Munsif acceded to the contention of the tenants and decreed the suits for a lesser sum. On appeal the learned Subordinate Judge set aside the decisions of the Munsif and decreed the suits in full. In second appeal, the learned single Judge reversed the decrees of the lower appellate Court and restored the decrees of the learned Munsif.

(2.) The tenancies in question were created in the year 1860 and the rent payable was fixed at so much per bigha. In the year 1912, the record of rights was prepared, and according to the landlords the areas recorded in the record of rights were found to be in excess of the areas thought to have been originally settled. This was the case not only with regard to the present appellants but also with regard to a number of other tenants. In some cases the landlords took proceedings under Section 105, Bihar Tenancy Act, and in other cases they brought civil suits against the tenants for assessment of rent upon the excess areas. Some of these suits appear to have been successful and some failed. Suits, however, it is said, were not brought against the tenant-respondents, because according to the landlords they agreed to pay rent for the additional area found to be in their possession at the rate mentioned in the kabuliyats. In short, it is the landlords case that the tenants agreed that the areas shown in the record of rights were the correct areas and that they the landlords had not been paid up to that time the full amount of the rent for the areas which the tenant occupied.

(3.) In June 1937 the Government took certain steps for reduction of rents in the Shahabad area under Section 112, Bihar Tenancy Act. In accordance with that section a notification was issued appointing a Rent Reduction Officer and empowering him to reduce rents. The present respondents and others applied to this officer for reduction of their rent on the ground that it had been enhanced illegally by the landlords. They contended that being sarahmoian tenants the landlords had no right to enhance their rents which they had done on the ground of a general rise in prices. The landlords case was that the rent payable was the agreed rent at the agreed rate for the area actually in occupation. The Rent Seduction Officer accepted the tenants case and reduced their rents to the actual amounts shown in the record of rights. This decision was upheld in appeal by the Settlement Officer, and afterwards the landlords brought the present suits to recover rents at amounts greater than those allowed by the rent reduction authorities. The amounts claimed were at the rates of rent fixed in the kabuliyats, but the total amount for each holding was greater than the amount shown in the record of rights. This, the landlords said, was due to the fact that the tenants were in occupation of an area in excess of what it was thought when the amount of rent per holding was fixed. The learned Munsif, who heard the cases at first instance, went into the question as to whether the tenants were in possession of a greater area than was stated to have been originally settled with them. He found that they were not, and he also found that the difference between the amount of rent claimed and the amount shown in the record of rights was due to an illegal enhancement by the landlords based on increase in prices. In appeal the lower appellate Court found that the tenants were in possession of a greater area than was stated at the time of the original settlement. He also found that the amount of rent claimed was the correct amount at the rates stated in the kabuliats, and he further found that the tenants had agreed to pay these various amounts as rent.