PARSHOTTAM CHHAGANLAL Vs. KUBERDAS HARGOVANDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three appeals arise out of the three suits filed by the landholders of the inam village Shahijpur Bogha against the inamdar of that village for a declaration that they are entitled to hold their respective lands in dispute as vechan salami lands subject to the payment of salami only and not liable to the levy of altered assessment or fine for being put to non-agricultural use and for an injunction restraining the inamdar from recovering any such altered assessment or fine from them. The trial Court decreed their claim, but the) lower appellate Court set aside the decrees and dismissed the suits.

(2.) The lands involved in these three appeals are Survey Nos. 2|4, 46|3 and 1|1 respectively. They were put to non-agricultural use in 1919 by the construction of buildings on them, but the inamdar did not claim to levy altered assessment or fine and continued to recover only the salami as fixed at the survey settlement of 1912. These lands were purchased by the respective plaintiffs for Rs. 800 in 1925, for Rs. 2,975 in 1913 and Rs. 6,500 in 1933 respectively. In all the three sale deeds the lands were described as the ancestral vechan salami lands of the respective vendors. The present inamdar Kuberdas purchased the village on November 18, 1930, for Rs. 59,999 and began to put forward various claims to increase the income of the village. In 1934 he moved the Collector to fix the non-agricultural assessment and fine leviable on the three lands in suit under Secs.48 and 66 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code. Accordingly the Collector ordered that Rs. 552-11-0 should be levied as altered assessment for the years 1926-27 to 1933-34 and Rs. 165 as fine on survey No. 2/4, Rs. 566-8-0 as altered assessment for the same years and a fine of Rs. 170 on survey No. 46/3 and an altered assessment at the rate of Rs. 26-4-0 per year and a fine of Rs. 26-4-0 on survey No. 111. This led to the institution of these three suits by the purchasers of those lands.

(3.) The first question raised in these suits is whether the inamdar is a grantee of the soil or only of the royal share of the revenue of the village. I have held in the companion appeals that he is a grantee of the soil on evidence similar to that adduced in these three suits. But it is urged that at any rate the salami lands must not have been included in the grant. This contention is based on the Inam Commissioner's sanad of 1864. In the Crop Register of that year (Samvat 1920) the total area of the lands in the village was shown as 2,015 bighas and 15 vasas, but according to the sanad the area granted was 1,593 bighas and 15 vasas. The sanad, however, purports to confirm the grant of the whole village in inam. A scrutiny of the Crop Register shows that the total of 2,015 bighas and 15 vasas was made up of 1,463 bighas fully assessed (talpat sarkari), 132 bighas paying only quit rent (salami) and 420 bighas and 14 vasas not liable to pay any assessment (nakra). This shows that the area given in the sanad did not include that of the lands wholly exempt from assessment, but it did include the salami lands. The appellants contention that the lands in suit were not included in the sanad is, therefore, not. tenable.