NABENDRA KISHORE ROY Vs. SRIMATI RAHIMA BANU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs-appellants as purchasers of an entire estate at a sale for arrears of Government revenue, known as the 4-annas bahali hissya pargana Darra, sued to recover possession of the lands in dispute as appertaining to the said estate. The defence was that the lands did not belong to the estate purchased by the plaintiffs, but to another hissya (the 3- annas 1-kurant hissya) in that pargana, and was part of a taluk which was existing from before the Permanent Settlement. The Commissioner who was appointed to make a local investigation found that, according to the thak map, some of the lands formed part of the estate purchased by the plaintiffs, but that according to certain chittas of the year 1844, the lands appertained to 3-annas and odd gandas-zamindari. The Court of first instance preferred the thak map to the chittas, on the ground that the chittas were prepared by the Government in its capacity as the fractional zemindar of the pargana in order to ascertain the lands belonging to it, without prejudice to the rights of the rival bahali maliks, and its evidentiary value is hardly better than that of one prepared by any other private proprietor. That Court accordingly decreed the suit with respect to a portion of the lands. On appeal, the learned Subordinate Judge held that the chittas prevailed over the thak, and dismissed the suit entirely. The plaintiffs have appealed to this Court. Now both the thak map and the chittas are evidence, and it was for the lower, Appellate Court to attach such value as it thought proper to each of them, and in second appeal, we cannot go into the weight to be attached to these documents respectively. The learned Subordinate Judge, however, referring to a decision of a Division Bench of this Court (Caspersz and Doss, JJ.) in a case Nobendra Kishore Roy v. Durga Charan Chowdhury 10 Ind. Cas. 287 : 15 C.W.N. 515 relating to the very same estate in which a similar question was raised, observed: "As regards the probative force of the chitta of 1251, it has been decided by the Hon ble High Court that the record thus prepared, is a document of a public nature and evidence of the slate of affairs then existing."

(2.) The learned Judges in that case observed: "The chitta was prepared at that time, as appears from the evidence, for the purpose of distributing in equal manner the public revenue on the separate bahali hissya which was subsequently purchased by the plaintiffs. The record thus prepared is a document of a public nature and evidence of the state of affairs then existing."

(3.) We do not know what evidence there was in that case with reference to which those observations were made.