BHAIYA ARDAWAN SINGH Vs. RAJA UDEY PARTAB SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE parties to this appeal are lineal descendants, through males, of Rajah Sheo Singh, who at the beginning of this century possessed the talook of Bhinga: the respondent being the descendant of Sarabjit Singh, his eldest, and the appellant of Umrao Singh, his second son. At the time of the Mutiny the talook was confiscated; but it was subsequently restored to the family, and was settled in 1856-57, and again in 1858-59, upon Rajah Kishen Dutt, the son of Sarabjit. Rajah Kishen Dutt died in 1862, and was succeeded by the respondent.

(2.) JABRAJ Singh, father of the appellant, who was the son of Umrao Singh, died in 1881; and, in March, 1887, the present suit was brought by the respondent, in which he claims proprietary possession of two villages within the talook, Gutwa and Basthanwa, which are also known by the common name of Sochouli, and, in the alternative, that the appellant is bound to relieve him of the revenue payable to Government in respect of these two villages. The only ground of action disclosed in the plaint is, that the title upon which Jabraj held possession of the villages was a grant for maintenance, resumable by the talookdar upon his decease.

(3.) JABRAJ insisted, before the arbiters, in a claim for no less than thirty-one villages, including the two now in suit, and a third which was alleged to have been granted to him by the rajah "as a reward, by reason of his accidentally killing a tiger." The arbiters adjudicated upon his claim for these three villages, but declined to entertain his claim for the remaining twenty-eight, holding that it did not relate to any right by cadetship, constituting an incumbrance upon the talook belonging to the head of the family, but asserted an absolute proprietary title adverse to him, and therefore ought to be enforced by an action at law. They rejected the claim of Jabraj for the village said to have been granted to him by way of reward; and, in regard to the subjects now in controversy, they found "that the two villages Gutwa and Basthanwa, given as maintenance, be decreed in favour of plaintiff (to continue) as heretofore." That deliverance was confirmed by Maharajah Sir Maun Singh on July 6, 1869.