NARAYAN SINGH Vs. NIRANJAN CHAKRAVARTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS was a suit to enforce by sale certain mortgages of lands, which may be shortly called the Handwa estates, created by the late Udit Narayan Singh of Lagma, in Pargana Handwa, a jungleterry taluq in the Sonthal Parganas district. The suit was defended on behalf of Kumar Satya Narayan Singh, whom the widow of Udit Singh adopted under his testamentary authority as his son, and the ground of defence was that the Handwa estates were and are inalienable and passed unencumbered to this defendant as successor on the death of Udit Singh, the mortgages notwithstanding. Two main questions arose: the first, whether the estates were ever inalienable at all; and the second, even if so, whether before the dates of the mortgages they had not become alienable in full. Both Courts rejected the defence: the Subordinate Judge mainly on the first point; the High Court of Patna, while accepting the original inalienability of the estates, definitely upon the second. This defendant now appeals.

(2.) THE title and tenure asserted by the appellant rest on an alleged grant and subsequent confirmation of a permanent ghatwali tenure made to his ancestor Subha Singh by Captain Brown and Mr. Dickinson, officers of the ruling power, in 1776 and 1794 respectively. The respondents' case is that nothing more took place than an ordinary revenue settlement of these estates then belonging to Subha Singh, confirmed at the permanent settlement, and subject to no tenure or condition of inalienability.

(3.) THE learned judge thus made light of the title deeds, on which the defendant relied, regarding them as mere recognitions, not very accurately expressed, of pre-existing rights, for which view he thought that he found conclusive record and authority in the reports of various officers of the company which have been published from time to time. From similar sources, and to the like effect, was derived a whole series of other incidents and of official acts which he considered to be of capital importance.