KUMUD KANTA PAHARI Vs. PROVINCE OF BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal involves a question of some complexity, if not difficulty, and has been argued at some length.

(2.) The facts are simple. The plaintiffs, who are the appellants before me, brought a suit for a declaration of their niskar brahmottar title to an area of a little over 7 bighas of land, but at the hearing it was explained that what they really claimed was a revenue-free right under a lakheraj grant of the non-badshahi lease. Their ease was that defendants 2 and 3 were really tenants under them, but had been wrongly recorded as holding under certain patnidars of the Estate Rupnarayanpur. That estate had recently been sold for arrears of revenue and purchased by the Province of Bengal and after its purchase, the Province had proceeded to recover rent from defendants 2 and 3 by the certificate procedure on the footing that the interest of the patnidars had ceased to exist. These happenings, the plaintiffs alleged, had cast a cloud upon their title and accordingly they asked for the declaration which I have already mentioned as also for some arrears of rent from the tenant defendants.

(3.) The defence of the Province of Bengal was that the record of rights was correct and the lands formed a part of the mal assets of Estate Rupnarayanpur. The further case of the Province of Bengal was that it was not bound by any rent-free grant of the defaulting proprietor, assuming any such grant had been made. The defence of the tenant defendants was merely one of payment of rent partly to the Province of Bengal and partly to the plaintiffs themselves; but on the question of title, they supported the plaintiffs.