UPENDRA NARAIN BHUTTACHARJEE Vs. PRATAP CHUNDER PARDHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These six appeals relate to six suits brought by the plaintiff for the possession of certain chowkidari chakran lands resumed by Government and now in the possession of the tenant defendants. The Government made over the land to the zemindar defendant, who allowed the tenant defendants (who were the old chowkidars) to remain on the lands and accepted rent from them. The plaintiff is a lessee under a putnidar under the zemindar defendant. By the terms of the putnidar's putni lease he is entitled to all resumed lands without any adjustment of his rent. He has therefore a right to the disputed lands, and the plaintiff, as his representative, can evict the tenant defendants from them, if they do not come to terms with him, which they apparently have not done. The first Court accordingly decreed the suits in favour of the plaintiff. The second Court has modified the decree of the first Court, relying on the decision of Hari Narain Mozumdar V/s. Mukund Lal Mundal (1900) 4 C.W.N. 814 and has directed that the plaintiff may recover rent from the tenant defendants, hut he cannot eject them.

(2.) The plaintiff now appeals.

(3.) We think the lower Appellate Court has misunderstood the ratio decidendi of the case of Hari Narain Mozumdar V/s. Mukund Lal Mundal (1900) 4 C.W.N. 814. In that case the zamindar defendant seems to have been put in actual possession of the lands by Government, and, while in that position, to have let the lands to the tenant defendants. The plaintiff in that suit did not at first come to terms with him. In the course of that suit it was settled on what terms the plaintiff was to obtain possession of the lands, and when that was done, it was too late to turn out the tenant defendants, for they had been accepted as tenants by the defacto landlord. The case is quite different in the present suit. The zemindar defendant seems to have accepted the tenant defendants as his tenants and to have taken rent from them malafide. It has been found by both Courts that he had no right to do this under the terms of the pottah he had granted to the putnidar, against whom he had no further claim, and of which terms he must have been well aware. The tenant defendants may have acted bond fide, but the zemindar defendant did not. The case of Binad Lal Pukrashi V/s. Kalu Pramanik (1893) I.L.R. 20 Calc. 708 is the leading case on this subject. It made a great encroachment on the strict law, according to which a landlord, who has no title, can give no title to a third person and a person, who has a title, can give a title to another only for as long as his own title endures. But in the case of Binad Lal Pakrashi V/s. Kalu Pramanik (18923) I.L.R. 20 Calc. 708 and the cases in which it has been followed, the defacto zemindar was litigating with another or was deprived of his title as the result of a subsequent litigation. It could not be expected that he would let his lands lie fallow, and it would be hard on the raiyats, if they were, afterwards ejected, when it was found that he had no title. Hence they were held to have acquired the status of tenants. But it never was intended to be laid down that a person knowing that he had no title could induct persons into the lands of others, and that the persons so inducted could not be evicted by the rightful owners. This has been laid down in no case. If this were the law, then any outsider could constitute any other person the tenant of any landlord and deprive such laud-lord of all right of letting his own land. This cannot be allowed. "We therefore consider the decree of the lower Appellate Court in these cases to be wrong. We set it aside and restore the decrees of the first Court. This order carries costs.