MATBER SINGH Vs. RAI KRISHNA BAHADUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals arise out of three suits for arrears of rent. The plaintiff claimed as landlord in respect of a one-third share of his patti but the tenant-defendants took the defence that he was entitled only to a share of one-sixth. The parties were also at issue regarding the rate of rent which was payable for this land, and the defendants further claimed that during the years in suit the greater part of the land had been unfit for cultivation. On these points the Courts below have found against the tenant-defendants, who have now come up in second appeal from the decree.

(2.) Mr. Hareshwar Prasad Sinha on behalf of the defendants argues in the first place that the suits could not be treated as properly framed under Section 148-A, Bihar Tenancy Act, because all the co-sharers who are named in Register D have not been joined as defendants; and further that since the plaintiff is recorded in Register D for a share of two annas eight pies, he cannot now claim a larger share. In support of this last ground of appeal, Mr. Hareshwar Prasad Sinha cites the decision of this Court in Sarafat Karim V/s. Harangi Singh (Second Appeals Nos. 395 to 397 of 1929); but in that case the plaintiff who was recorded in the khewat and Register D for a share of six annas claimed that he had obtained title to the whole sixteen annas by adverse possession. It was held that he could only claim the - share for which he was recorded in Register D. It has not been held, and it never could be held, that the holder of a separate patti can recover in his patti nothing more than the share calculated in terms of the whole mahal which is entered in Register D.S. 148-A, Bihar Tenancy Act, requires the plaintiff to join as co- defendants only the other landlords of the holding, not the other proprietors of the estate, and for whatever share the other proprietors may be recorded in Register D, they are not in the sense in which the word is used in the Tenancy Act landlords of these holdings unless they are actually co-sharers in the patti within which the holdings lie.

(3.) The question of whether there has been pattidari division of this kind is a question of fact, but Mr. Hareshwar Prasad Sinha objects that in arriving at their decision, the Courts below have relied on inadmissible evidence, or on documents which were not properly proved. A written statement which purports to have been filed by the defendant Matber Singh in a case under Section 144, Criminal P. C, was put in evidence, but although objection was taken at the time no attempt was made by the plaintiff to connect this written statement with Matber Singh, that is to say, there is no evidence that he filed it or that he authorized the filing of it.