BHAGIRAT Vs. KHETPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's appeal and arises out of a suit for profits (from 1327 to 1329 faslis). filed in the revenue Court under Section 165, Agra Tenancy Act (2 of 1901).

(2.) The plaintiffs own a one-third share and the defendants a two-thirds share in the patti with respect to which profits were claimed by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs case was that, by a mutual arrangement the parties collected rent from every tenant in the patti in proportion to their respective shares, and that both the parties had made collections in (excess of their shares from certain tenants in the years in question. The plaintiffs claimed a decree for their share of the rent that had been realised by the defendant from certain tenants, after deducting therefrom the rent collected by the plaintiffs in excess of their share from other tenants. The plaintiffs further maintained that in the settlement of accounts the land in cultivation of the parties should be taken into account. The suit was resisted by the defendant inter alia on the grounds that the plaintiffs themselves, having, on their own showing, collected rent from certain tenants in excess of their one-third share, in contravention of the arrangement alleged by them, the suit should have been framed as an ordinary suit under Section 165, Tenancy Act, embracing the entire patti, and that the suit as framed was not maintainable, and that the defendant had not collected more than his share of the profits and as such the plaintiffs were not entitled to a decree. The accuracy of the accounts appended to the plaint was also denied by the defendant.

(3.) The trial Court held that the arrangement for the collection of the rent, hence is that each party is to collect rent in proportion of its respective shares from each tenant.