LAMBODAR CHAKRARVARTI Vs. KEDAR MANJHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal arising out of an action in which the plaintiff in substance claimed the correction of the Record of Right s. The record returned the principal defendants as occupancy raiyats under the plaintiff. The plaintiff came forward with a case that in 1320 there was a mortgage to the defendants and after the expiration of that mortgage another mortgage was granted to the defendants. A part of the story put forward by the plaintiff has been characterised by both the Courts below as false and the learned District Judge in the Court of Appeal below states that the object of the suit, which, according to the Judge, was brought in collusion with some of the defendants, was to dispossess the principal defendants from their occupancy rights. One important fact was found by the learded District Judge, reversing the decision in that regard of the Munsif, and that was that Ex. B, the patta. was a genuine document. Ex. B was a patta granted by the plaintiff to the defendants in the year 1287. The period of the patta was ten years, and it is clear from the findings of the Court below that the defendants held over from 1297 to the year 1320. It must not be understood that I mean that in 1320 the defendants gave up possession. The question is the basis of one of the controversies before this Court.

(2.) Now, as I have indicated, the Courts below dismissed the plaintiff's suit very largely on the ground that the greater part of it was false. It would appear that before the District Judge the plaintiff had claimed to redeem his mortgage of 1320 on the payment of the consideration money, namely, Rs. 250. To use the words of the learned District Judge, it is argued that since the suit is within twelve years of the expiry of the sudbandhak the plaintiff should get a decree for recovery of possession on redemption of the mortgage by payment of Rs. 250. This the learned Judge, in my opinion, rightly refused as it was not the plaintiff's case.

(3.) It is difficult to appreciate the argument of the appellant in this Court. On the facts as found many of which were in favour of the plaintiff, one matter clearly stands out and that is that as the defendants were in possession from 1287 to at least 1320, the date of the mortgage bond, they had acquired occupancy rights under the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act. The only possible answer to that case would have been that in 1320 the defendants delivered up possession to the plaintiff, thus relinquishing such rights that they may have had in the land. Whether that would have been contrary to Section 79, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, in my judgment, need not be decided. Mr. Mazumdar on behalf of the appellant suggests that as there was no finding on the question of whether the defendants delivered up possession in 1320, the matter should go back to the District Judge for a finding on that question. The only possible support that argument can have is the statement of the learned District Judge to this effect: Defendants are in my opinion mortgagees holding over since the expiry of the sudbandhak in 1324.