NALINIKANTA MUKERJI Vs. GOBINDA RAMANUJE DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiff, a landlord, who sued for recovery of the registration fee in respect of the sale of an occupancy holding by his recognised tenants, defendants 2 to 5, to defendant 1 (now the respondent) for a consideration of Rs. 1,000. The purchase of defendant 1 was admittedly made in June 1914, though both the plaint and the written statement (following the recent Record of Rights) wrongly gave the date as 17 May 1915. The lower appellate Court expressly says that we may take it that defendant 1 is in possession since the time of his purchase. He never applied to the landlord for registration, nor did he ever obtain any rent receipts from the landlord showing payment of rent on his own account.

(2.) It has also been held as a fact that "he has been paying the rent for the land but the rent is paid in the name of the original tenant." In the last Record of Rights, which was published in February 1928, this defendant was shown as in possession of the holding in virtue of the purchase. Upon this, in January 1929, the landlord registered the name of the defendant in question as the tenant of the holding, and less than six months afterwards brought the present suit for recovery of the registration fee under Section 31, Orissa Tenancy Act. The only defence to which it is now necessary to refer was that the defendant with the knowledge of the plaintiff has been owner in possession of the holding since the purchase and has also got his name recorded in the raiyati column of the current settlement khatian, so the raiyati right (limited interest), to the disputed holding has accrued to this defendant 1 according to law.

(3.) This plea did not find favour with the learned Deputy Collector who tried the suit and decreed it and whose finding on the point is expressed as follows: As to the limited interest or adverse possession there is no evidence before me to show that the landlord knew about the transfer and gave implied consent to the transfer since the date of the transfer. On appeal the learned District Judge came to the conclusion that the defendant was entitled to claim "a limited right of interest as a tenant by virtue of his possession for 12 years" and that the registration of the defendant by the landlord after the acquisition by the former of this limited right came too late to entitle the landlord to recover the registration fee.