KAMESHWAR SINGH BAHADUR Vs. RAMJI MISSER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the contesting defendant, the landlord of the village. One Bokaidas Bairagi conveyed some six bighas of land in Baijupati in rent free milik right by a registered kabala of 1283 Fasli to the father of the plaintiffs. The vendee, according to the plaintiffs case, came into possession under the kabala, and since his death the plaintiffs have been in possession without payment of any rent to the landlord. The Koshi Diara settlement was completed in December 1925; and in the record of rights which formed part of those proceedings three plots, which are said by the plaintiffs to be included in Bokaidas kabala, were entered in the name of the plaintiffs as "malguzar istamrari nahin" and were assessed with rent, while two other plots were recorded in the names of defendants 2 and 3 as raiyats under defendant 1.

(2.) Plaintiffs accordingly sued for a declaration of their rent-free milik title to all the five plots in dispute and other reliefs. Defendants 2 and 3 supported the plaintiffs and claimed no right whatsoever to plots 4 and 5. The landlord who alone contested the suit said that all the land had been his partigairmazrua, that plots 4 and 5 had been settled by him with defendants 2 and 3 as raiyats "as per jamabandi Nos. 116-116," that the plaintiffs had no title, rent-free or otherwise, to any of the five plots in suit, but that some persons had squatted on plots 1-3 "sometime after 1316 Fasli when the land became fit for cultivation . . . ." and that the plaintiffs won over these squatters and falsely claimed the lands as milik before the Settlement Officer on the strength of Bokaidas's kabala.

(3.) According to this defendant the kabala was spurious and was found to be so by the Settlement Officer, and the plaintiffs claim to hold the land as rent-free milik was rightly disallowed by the settlement authorities and the land properly entered as kabillagan and assessed to rent. Evidence was adduced on both sides and the trial Court found that the kabala sat up by the plaintiffs was genuine and covered the lands in suit, that the lands were not the landlord's gairmazrua khas, that the plaintiffs had been in possession of the lands since the purchase of 1283 Fasli from Bokaidas, and that they had been so in possession without payment of any rent to the landlord and on the assertion of their milik right to the lands to the knowledge of the local agents of the landlord and had thus acquired a milik right to the lands by adverse possession for more than 12 years. The suit was accordingly decreed.