SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL Vs. SRI RAJA KIRTIBAS BHUPATI HARICHANDAN MAHAPATRA AND SRI BIRBAR NARAYAN CHANDRA DHIR NARENDRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs in the two actions which have given rise to the present appeals are respectively the Zemindars of Sukinda and Madhupur in the Province of Orissa, and the question for determination relates to certain lands included in their estates in respect of which the defendant, the Secretary of State for India in Council, claims to exercise the right of resumption and assessment by virtue of the provisions of Act VI of 1870 of the Bengal Council.

(2.) The facts of the two cases are set out with great clearness in the judgments of the High Court of Bengal, and do not, therefore, require a detailed statement. Their Lordships propose to give only a brief sketch of the circumstances which have culminated in the present litigation.

(3.) It appears that the predecessors of the two plaintiffs had been in possession of their estates from a time long anterior to the establishment of British power in that part of the country. The origin of their title under British rule is intimately connected with the political history of the Province. Orissa consists of three well- defined tracts; in the middle lies a level open country inhabited by a settled population. Here the Moguls in the reign of Akbar introduced their revenue system with its regular assessment of public dues. These territories were consequently designated the Mogulbandi, which is defined in Regulation XII of 1805 as "being that part of the District of the Zillah of Cuttack in which, according to established usage, as in Bengal, the land itself is responsible for the payment of the public revenue, and in which every landholder holds his land subject to the conditions of that usage.