GOBARDHAN SAHU Vs. LALMOHAN KHARWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Gobardhan Sahu appeals against the judgment dated 23 March 1933, of the Judicial Commissioner of Chhota Nagpur in rent appeal No. 48 of 1931, whereby the learned Judicial Commissioner dismissed with costs the rent suit which he had brought against Lalmohan Kharwar (or Bhogta) and others, defendants, now respondents. The appeal is valued at Rs. 26 odd. The appellant is a co-sharer landlord of village Meral and collects his own share of the rent separately. The other co-sharer landlords are his relatives Kewal Sahu, Ramdeo Sahu and others. In the rent suit with which we are now concerned he sued 40 defendants, including the present respondents who are 7 in number, for rent of the years 1335 to 1337 F.S. Eleven of the defendants paid up the rent claimed, and the plaintiff filed a petition of satisfaction as regards his claims against them. Only 7 of the defendants, i.e., the present respondents, contested the suit claiming that they were not tenants but tenure-holders.

(2.) The lands in question were entered as the respondents raiyati holdings in the Record of Rights which was finally published in 1918. After that the respondents brought a suit under Section 87, Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act, to have themselves recorded not as tenants, but as tenure-holders. The suit was dismissed by the trying Court, but was decreed on appeal by the Judicial Commissioner in March 1920. The defendant appealed to this Court, and the resulting decision is reported in Foujdar Sahu V/s. Nema Bhogta 1923 Pat 135. It was held therein by Das and Ross, JJ., that no appeal lay to this Court because: A decision under Section 87, Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act, is not a decree; it is a decision, and there is no appeal to the High Court under the Civil Procedure Code from a decision.

(3.) The judgment was delivered by Das, J. who observed further that: It was argued by Mr. Ram Lal Dutt that the learned Judicial Commissioner had no business to decide a question of title. But I do not think that he has in fact decided any question of title. No doubt in deciding whether the entry in the Record of Rights is correct or incorrect he had incidentally to discuss the question of title but his decision on the question of title is only incidental; it is nothing more than that. His decision really is a decision on the question of possession.