JAITRAM Vs. GIRDHARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs and the defendant 1 Girdhari are co-sharers in a village of which Girdhari is the lambardar, and the land in question has-been held in severalty by the plaintiffs as their khudkasht for some years with the consent of the remaining co-sharer Girdhari. That is enough for, the purposes of this case, though it is very clearly proved by the evidence that Girdhari agreed with the plaintiffs that they were to have the sole management of this village and were to cultivate all the khudkasht land in it. On the 15th January 1925 Girdhari executed a deed, which was registered, giving Sukhiram, defendant 2, a perpetual lease of the land in dispute. Sukhiram, however, never got possession and on the 14th April of the same year the plaintiffs, acting with Unusual promptitude, filed the suit out of which this appeal has arisen, praying for a declaration that the lease was void.

(2.) IT has been held in both the Courts below that the deed of lease is void because the defendant Girdhari had no right to grant it. That is undoubtedly correct. There seems to be a very common delusion that a lambardar has some sort of personal authority in him self to grant leases of land in which, he owns a share. Such a grant can of course: be made only by the whole body of proprietors, though most frequently they make it through the lambardar as their1 representative. Here, however, Girdhari did not even purport to act on behalf of the whole proprietary body; he granted the lease himself, in denial of the right of the other co-sharers to have any voce in the matter and in supersession of the grant already made by the whole body of proprietors including himself.

(3.) THE word "probably" in a statement of that sort is entirely out of place, but anyhow the principle stated as probable is treated as absolute for the purposes of the argument.