SRIRAM CHAKRAVARTI Vs. HARI NARAIN SINGH DEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit relates to village Petana, which is situated within the ancestral zemindari of the plaintiff Kumar Jyoti Prasad Singh Deo. It is held by the third group of defendants, who are called the Groswamis, as a permanent debutter tenure subject to a rent of about Rs. 23 paid to the zemindar. It is held as a makarrari maurusi tenure under them by a large number of persons, who composed the second group of defendants known as the Chakravartis and Namtirthas, and these mukarrnndars gave a lease of the village to the first group of defendants, known as Messrs. Mylne & Co., from May 1894 to June 1899, in order that these defendants might work the coal mines discovered in the village.

(2.) In 1898 the plaintiff learnt of these mining operations, and instituted this suit against Messrs. Mylne & Co. in July 1900 to have his underground rights in the village declared, to get khas possession of the same, to obtain an injunction against the Company and to recover compensation for the coal taken. In September 1900 a February, 1901 the plaintiff added the Gos-wamis and the mukarraridars as co-defendants. The Subordinate Judge decreed the suit and awarded the plaintiff Rs. 2,000 damages against all the defendants except the Goswamis. Against his decision this appeal has been preferred by most of the mukarraridars.

(3.) The objections taken before us to the Subordinate Judge's decision are, that the appellants have held this village as a mukarruri for about eighty years; that they own all the underground rights in it, and have exercised those rights for upwards of twenty-six years; and that the plaintiff never claimed those rights before ho gave notice in this case. Now it is true that the plaintiff had not claimed the underground rights, until ho learned that Mylne & Co. were digging out the coal in 1898, and it is also true that the Chakravartia and Namtirthas have held this village in. mukarrari for many years; though it is not clear how long they have held it, because the two deeds of the year 1822, which they have produced, are spurious in our opinion.