RAJA RISHIKESH LAW Vs. SRIMATI MANDAKINI DASI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff instituted the suit out of which this appeal has arisen, for declaration of her mourasi mokurrari right to some lands and for khas possession of the same, and in the alternative for possession by receipt of fair and equitable rent and for mesne profits.

(2.) The plaintiff's case was that she held the lands in suit under the defendants Nos. 1 to 4 under a maurasi mokurrari lease granted to her by their predecessors, the former zemindar of the pergunnah and that the lands are described in the said lease as being paikan jaigir lands and as comprising an area of 82 bighas, but they have been found on measurement, at the recent survey and settlement, to be 130 bighas and odd, that the lands were the paikan land of Mouzah Chaitanyapur and were in the possession of certain paiks who used to hold them in lieu of wages and paid some peshkush rent and rendered service to the plaintiff or her predecessor, that the plaintiff had come to learn that the Collector had abolished the paiks and resumed the lands and settled the same with the defendants Nos. 1 to 4 and that the defendants Nos. 5 to 43 claimed to hold the lands under settlement obtained by them from the defendants Nos. 1 to 4. The plaintiff alleged that she had been dispossessed as the defendants denied her title and refused to pay the rents The Secretary of State for India in Council was impleaded in the suit as the defendant No. 44.

(3.) The plaintiff challenged the validity of the resumption proceedings and of the settlements made by the Collector in favour of the defendants Nos. 1 to 4 and of the settlements under which the defendants Nos. 5 to 43 claimed to hold under the defendants Nos 1 to 4