LAL BAIJNATH SINGH Vs. THAKUR CHANDRAPAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute in this case relates to a grove No. 168 in Mauza Ghatampur in the Allahabad District. The grove was planted by the ancestors of the second and third defendants with the permission of the zemindar on payment of nazrana and they occupied the land as grove-holders. They have transferred their rights in the grove by a sale-deed to the first defendant Chandarpal Singh. The plaintiff-appellant Lai Baijnath Singh thereupon instituted the present suit on the allegation that the transfer was unlawful and that it gave the zemindar a right to recover possession of the land. Both the Courts below have dismissed the suit. They held that under the general law a person who plants a grove with the permission of the zemindar acquires a transferable interest in the trees and that the plaintiff has failed to prove any custom disentitling the defendants from transferring their rights.

(2.) Two points arise in the appeal, (1) whether a custom forbidding grove-holders to transfer the trees is laid down in the wajb-ul-arz of the village, and, if so, whether it has been rebutted; (2) whether the general law has been rightly laid down by the Courts below.

(3.) At the time when the wajib-ul-arz was prepared the village was owned by a single zemindar. The wajb-ul-arz states that there are in this village certain groves of which a separate list is given. The clause continues:-- "Apart from eating the fruits and flowers, the planters have no kind of right of cutting down, selling or mortgaging without the permission of the zemindar. The zemindar has no right to a share in the produce, and no one can plant a grove in future without the permission of the zemindar, and when the land of the groves becomes vacant it will be under the zemindar's control." Read in connection with the previous sentence the natural reference of the word planters (nasiban) is to the planters of the groves which have just been enumerated. Having regard, moreover, to the form of the clause and to the prohibition which follows against planting fresh groves without permission, it seems highly doubtful whether this clause intended to lay down any general custom. At any rate, it appears to me that the natural construction of the clause relied on by the appellant is to limit it to the groves which are specifically referred to in the clause.