NEMAI CHANDRA BOSE Vs. MOHAMED BASIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants were claimants Nos. 7 to 9 in the lower Court, and they claimed proprietary interest in the land under acquisition, or, in the alternative the interest of permanent tenants. Their claim of proprietary interest has been abandoned and very properly abandoned, by the learned Vakil who has argued their case. The only question that remains for "our decision is whether they have succeeded in making put a case of permanent tenancy.

(2.) The kobala of the 27 September 1842, executed by one Srimati Bimola Sundari Dasi in favour of Jadub Chandra Bose, the predecessor of the claimants shows that she had a tenancy right in respect of 4 bighas 2 1/2 cottas of land, tanks and trees, bearing a rental of sicca Rs. 24-12. The land was described in the kobala as garden land, and the kobala further stated that the husband of Bimola had purchased the land and had been in enjoyment and possession of it and that she had inherited it as the heiress of her husband. At that time the tenancy stood in the office of the landlord in the name of her husband Ganga Narain Sirkar, The deed, therefore, shows that Ganga Narain was recognised as purchaser, and his name was substituted for that of his vendor. The name of Bimola was not substituted in the landlord's office, but it does not appear when Ganga Narain died and whether there was a sufficient interval between the death of Ganga Narain and the kobala of 26 September 1842, which might lead to an inference that the landlord had refused to recognize the inheritance of Bimola. Nothing, therefore, turns on the non-substitution of Bimola's name. On the other hand the hukumnama dated the 8 Chait, 1249, corresponding with 20 March 1843, clearly indicates that the then landlord, the Nawab of Chitpore recognized the purchaser from Bimola and directed a kabuliat to be executed by him and possession to be delivered to him; Bimola's tenancy by inheritance from her husband was thus indirectly recognized. Since the purchase by Jadub Chandra, the property has remained in his family, and his belt's and descendants have been successively recognised as tenants for more than half a century. Devolution of interest either by assignment or succession, and its recognition by successive landlords, afford sufficient evidence of permanency.

(3.) The direction in the hukumnama of 1843, as to the delivery of possession to Jadub Chandra was a surplusage. It is a purely formal matter. Sometimes istafas used to be taken from vendors in those days, and nothing turns on the form of the hukumnama. There is no evidence of actual cessation of possession of Bimola and subsequent delivery of possession to Jadub Chandra. The kabuliat of Jadub Chandra has not been put in and we do not know what the contents of that document were. The respondents did not, or would not, produce it.