CHAUDHARI RAGHUBANS NARAIN SINGH Vs. MANPHAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs are occupancy tenants of the defendant zemindar and combined together to bring a declaratory suit on the basis of a common right which they claimed, that the zemindar was not entitled to cut kikar trees standing on their occupancy land. They did not claim ownership of the trees. What they claimed was that so long as their occupation of the land lasted and they were not ejected from the land, the zemindar was not entitled to come on to their occupancy land and get the trees cut. The declaration desired was in these terms.

(2.) "A decree may be passed by the Court and it may be declared that the defendant zemindar had no right to sell any trees standing on the boundary walls appertaining to or situate in the plaintiffs occupancy holding or to get it cut so long as the relation of zemindar and tenant subsisted between them, without the permission and consent of the occupancy tenants." A perpetual injunction was desired in the same terms.

(3.) The defence was that it was the recognised right of the zemindar to cut trees growing on land held by the zemindar's tenants as of occupancy holdings. The question, therefore, is whether such a right existed. The lower Appellate Court was not correct in stating in his judgment that the defendant zemindar in his written statement pleaded any local usage authorising him to cut or sell trees on occupancy holdings without the consent of the tenants. The defence was based on general law and not on any exception to that law under a custom recorded in the wajib-ul-arz or to be proved orally.