NIZAM DIN Vs. GODAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question in this appeal is whether in 1891 or 1892 one Gharib, who was then sub-mortgagee in possession of the suit lands and is now represented by the defendants, acquired the equity of redemption which was then vested in the plaintiffs as sons of the deceased mortgagor. The defendants set up this purchase in answer to the claim for redemption in the present suit filed by the plaintiffs in 1920, and the Subordinate Judge of Lahore holding that there were no sufficient reasons for questioning the sale, dismissed the suit. This decree was reversed by the High Court of Lahore, and the defendants have appealed.

(2.) As Gharib and his descendants, the present defendants, have been recorded as proprietors of the suit lands ever since 1893 in the annual jamabandi statements, and were also so recorded in the village record of rights prepared after the settlement of 1911-12, a statutory presumption arises under S. 44, Punjab Land Revenue Act (17 of 1887), that the aforesaid entries are correct. They were admittedly based on an order in the mutation register signed by the Revenue Assistant, and dated 4 February 1892, in which it is stated that the plaintiffs had appeared before him and admitted the sale and receipt of the consideration, and in which mutation was ordered in favour of Gharib the vendee. It was also stated that Rupa Mal the mortgagee, also appeared, and admitted the receipt of the mortgage debt due to him, and that Bhamba the lambardar, or village headman, also approved the above facts. The plaintiffs therefore cannot succeed without displacing this sale, and the onus on them is the heavier because the title of the defendants as recorded proprietors since 1893, has stood unchallenged until the institution of the present suit in 1920, when the vendee and the officials whose names appear in the mutation proceedings, were dead and the alleged vendors who sue as plaintiffs, were the sole survivors.

(3.) The suit lands consist of a three-quarter undivided share of 2,440 kanals 3 marias in the village of Qutba in the district of Lahore, and at the beginning of 1883 belonged to one Shaman. On 21 January 1883, Shaman sold them for Rs. 4,000 to the defendants ancestor Gharib, who was a Zaildar and a man of position, but did not reside in the village or own any land in it. He was at once sued for pre-emption by Rama, one of the Kamboh landowners in the village, and by Ala the plaintiffs' father, as landowner belonging to another tribe. He did not contest Ala's suit, and Ala accordingly pre-empted him and became the owner of the suit lands, Kama's suit being apparently dismissed.