HAJI MUHAMMAD KARIMULLAH KHAN Vs. JHAMAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are appeals in suits under Sections 150 and 154 of the Tenancy Act. The question for decision in both cases is the same, namely, whether the land was held rent free under a judicial decision previously to December 22nd, 1873, within the meaning of Section 151 of the Act. This section re-places parts of Section 30 of the North-Western Provinces Rent Act, 1881, which in turn replaced parts of Sections 79 and 80 of the North-Western Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1873. The history of the law relating to the resumption of rent free grants previous to the passing of the Act of 1873 will be found in Irvine s Rent Digest published in 1869. It is sufficient to say here that the Act of 1873 declared that the period of limitation theretofore applied to cases of resumption of rent free holdings should no longer be applied, but it was desired to avoid the re-opening of cases already judicially decided, Hence the provision now in question.

(2.) In view of the fact that the only known authorities on the meaning of this provision are decisions in cases which occurred in Oudh, I may point out that the provisions contained in Sections 79 and 80 of the above mentioned Act of 1873 were enacted for Oudh by Sections 52 to 55 of the Oudh Land Revenue Act, XVII of 1876, which has since been re placed (with modifications) by Chapter VII A of the Oudh Rent Act. All the Oudh provisions are not exactly the same as those enacted for the North-Western Provinces, because the old Regulations did not apply to Oudh, but the provision now in question is the same in both Provinces.

(3.) It has been held by the Board of Revenue in Daya Shankar v. Mazhar Husain Selected Decision No. 6 of 1909 that the decision of a Settlement Officer in Oudh pronounced in 1864 during the first Regular Settlement of Oudh that certain persons were entitled to be maintained in perpetuity in rent-free possession of land, was a judicial decision within the meaning of Section 107B (b) of the Oudh Rent Act. But officers engaged in making the first Regular Settlement in Oudh had what we now call the powers of a Civil Court in cases relating to land, those powers having been conferred upon them by Lord Dalhousie s celebrated letter of instructions to the first Chief Commissioner of Oudh, dated February 4th, 1856, and subsequent orders of a similar kind. No Courts other than those of Settlement Officers and their Assistants had any Jurisdiction during the continuance of the first Regular Settlement operations in any case relating to the possession of land or any right in respect of land, and this state of things was continued by Act XVI of 1865.