MT. SARJI BAI Vs. DURGA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts of this case are sufficiently clear from the lower Courts' judgments. The defendant Mt. Sarjabai, who is the lambardar of the village concerned, has come up on appeal against the judgment and decree of the Additional District Judge, Nagpur, which disallowed her claim to recover Re. 61 on account of wages of the havildar and the mukaddam gumashta, as well as a petty charge of Re. 1 for stationery. Another item is also involved, petty in itself, the amount being Rs. 4-8-0 which was claimed in connexion with expenses incurred for the Holi and Dasehra celebrations.

(2.) ON behalf of the appellant, reference has been made to paragraph 6 of her written statement, dated 4-1-24. She therein claimed Rs. 18 being half of the yearly remuneration of Rs. 36 paid to the mukaddam gumashta. Similarly, Rs. 42 being half of the yearly remuneration paid to the same man as havildar was claimed. Admittedly, a single man performs both those duties, his total monthly remuneration thus being Rs. 10. It is urged that the lower appellate Court, in disallowing these items, wrongly went into the question whether the entertaining of this man as havildar and mukaddam-gumashta was necessary. It seems to me that this question clearly and impliedly arose on the pleadings. In paragraphs 7 and 8 of the plaintiff's rejoinder, dated 9-1-25, it was pleaded, apparently in the alternative, that, as the defendant received lambardari haq, she could not recover the mukaddam-gumashta's pay: while, as regards the havildar, it was pleaded that he was the defendant's private servant who did other work, with which we are not concerned, and who received no separate pay in respect of such work. It seems to me that, in the circumstances of this case, Issue 4 sufficiently covered the very simple point at issue and that the Judge of the lower appellate Court was perfectly entitled to consider the incidental matter whether or not it was necessary to entertain a separate havildar for the purposes of village management as concerning all the shareholders. The evidence of Ghulba (D. W. 5) sufficiently establishes the fact that his duties are multifarious and include various items for which the plaintiff-respondents cannot, on any reasonable basis, be held responsible.

(3.) FOR my own part, I find myself in full agreement with the decision of Drake-Brockman, J.C., in Second Appeal No. 490 of 1924, decided on 19-6-1915, The havildar and mukaddam-gumashta in this instance cannot be said to be a servant of the proprietary body. He is a private servant of the lambardar and appears to spend most of his time in looking after affairs with which she is only concerned as regards her own share in the village. The very reason for the statutory enactment contained in the new Act with reference to the remuneration to be paid to the lambardar was, in my opinion, to obviate the troublesome questions which may arise in cases of this nature were there not a definite statutory provision on the point.