DAYARAM GANPATSA Vs. DASHRATH RATIRAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IT is an admitted fact that in the village of Utvad there is an imperfect partition into pattis. Even the abadi of the village has been partitioned and allocated to each patti. Plaintiff is the lambardar of patti 1, and the site in dispute forms part of the abadi allotted to that patti Defendant, no doubt, is a tenant of the village but not of patti 1. He owns land in patti 4 of which another person is the lambardar. One Bondru once held tenancy land in patti 1 but he ceased to be a tenant arid thereafter he sold the site of his house to defendant. The question, therefore, was whether defendant's purchase of the site was at all operative as against the plaintiff. Plaintiff's contention was that with the cessation of Bondru's tenancy his right to the house site ceased and therefore the sale by him to defendant was null and void and conveyed no right to the site and secondly that the defendant was not a person who was legally entitled to a house site in the abadi of patti 1, merely because he possessed land in a separate patti No. 4 of the village.

(2.) THE first Court held that Bondru was not a tenant at the time of the sale of the site in dispute and that defendant was not entitled to purchase an abadi site in patti 1 and decreed the plaintiff's claim for possession. The lower appellate Court upheld the decision. Hence this second appeal by the defendant.

(3.) MOREOVER on the finding that Bondru had ceased to be a tenant before the sale, a finding which binds me in second appeal, his right to the house site became forfeited in favour of the landlord of the patti in which he held land and had no longer any transferable right to the house site he occupied. The cessation of tenancy works out an automatica forfeiture of the right to occupy the house site which at once escheats to the landlord. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.