HIRA LAL SINGH Vs. BABU RINKAURI SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the principal defendants in a suit for rent of two sets of mauzas held by them under two leases executed by the plaintiff's predecessors-in- title. The lease in respect of one set of four Mauzas, Ghoghraha, Suraya, Ratnakar and Sagrampur, expired with the year 1334 Fasli, and for the other set which comprised two Mauzas, Chapiatola Phenahra and Dubauli, in the following year. The rents sued for were confined to 1333 and 1334 in respect of the first set of mauzas but covered the year 1335 in respect of the second set. Various pleas were taken in defence, but they were mostly overruled both by the trial Court, and the suit was decreed in part. The defendants appealed to the District Judge, who upheld the decree and dismissed the appeal.

(2.) Before us three points have been raised by Mr. Manohar Lal on behalf of the appellants. The first is that the finding of the lower appellate Court as regards the plea of payment set up by the defendants is not in accordance with law in that it merely endorses the view of the trial Court without a fresh consideration of the evidence and without paying any attention to the fact that in the circumstances of the case a presumption should have been drawn from the failure of the plaintiff to go into the witness box that certain disputed receipts put forward by the defendants were signed by him. It does not seem to me that there is any force in this contention.

(3.) Though it is stated in one of the grounds in the memorandum of appeal that the plaintiff failed to appear in spite of summons were served on him by the appellants, no attempt has been made before us to show that that was so in fact. Nor does the point seem to have been actually urged in the lower appellate Court. As regards the disputed payments, the defendants put forward nine rent receipts in all. Three of these were admitted on behalf of the plaintiff and given credit for in the account attached to the plaint. As regards Ex. B-2, defendant 1 had to admit that that paper is not a receipt but only a "tankha" or demand letter; and the trial Court, for reasons given, declined to accept his story that the plaintiff had not given any receipt for the money because he was in a hurry.