MAHADEO LAL Vs. PRATAP UDAYNATH SAH DEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiffs appeal from the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge of Ranchi dismissing the plaintiff's suit for a mere declaration that the properties mentioned in Schedule B of the plaint are permanent, transferable and heritable jagir of the plaintiffs.

(2.) The defendant No. 1 is the Maharaja of Chota Nagpur and the proprietor of the estate in which the property in question is admittedly situate. The plaintiffs alleged that there was tenure known as Tisia Salaiya lot consisting of 14 villages which were granted to the remote ancestor of the defendants Nos. 2 to 18 sometime in 17 Century A.D., to one Prahlad Rai, who was the predecessor in title of the defendants second party (defendants Nos. 2 to 13). A genealogical table contained in Schedule C to the plaint was attached to the plaint as showing the relationship of the defendants second party to the said Prahlad Rai.

(3.) The plaintiffs further alleged that the defendants second party and their ancestors had been dealing with the tenure in question aforesaid as their permanent, heritable and partible jagir, and that the proprietors of the estate had been recognising that right all along; and that the cadastral survey recorded the tenure as jagir of the defendants without any qualification. Shortly before the revisional survey, the defendant No. 1 brought a rent suit against the defendants second party, and put the entire tenure to sale, and one Hari Bux Marwari purchased the tenure on 24 February 1933. In order to deposit the decretal sum as also compensation to the auction purchaser, the tenure holders aforesaid borrowed Rs. 5800 from the plaintiffs giving in usufructuary mortgage the four villages contained in Schedule B to the plaint, and put them in possession of the same. On the deposit being thus made the sale was set aside. Subsequently, the plaintiffs purchased the right, title and interest of mortgagors in the villages aforesaid contained in Schedule B to the plaint subject to the mortgage in their favour. The plaintiffs therefore are now in possession of the properties as auction- purchasers. During the revisional survey the tenure was wrongly entered, so the plain, tiffs alleged, as ghatwali tenure, and after publication of the revisional record of rights the defendant No. 1 instituted a rent suit against the second party defendants being Rent Suit No. 1176 of 1936-37 alleging for the first time that the tenure was a private ghatwali tenure and not a permanent and transferable one, and that, therefore, the defendants second party were liable to ejectment under Section 59, Chota Nagpur. Tenancy Act. The plaintiffs, therefore, instituted a suit for making their position clear in law by having a declaration that the tenure was a permanent, heritable and transferable one.