MT BELASO Vs. MAULADAD KHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff, a woman, is occupancy tenant of the land in suit and the defendant is one of the zamindars who are owners of the land. Both the subordinate Courts have dismissed the suit on the ground that her proper remedy lay in the revenue Court and not in the civil Court. It is argued here, and the argument is supported by an authority, that the jurisdiction of the revenue Court arises only where the entire body of lambardars, when there are more than one landlord, or one of them on behalf of the entire body, ejects a tenant. If only one landlord out of several ejects a tenant such ejectment would be merely a trespass and would not be covered by the provisions of Section 79 of the old Agra Tenancy Act: see Chedda V/s. Achhu Singh A.I.R. 1924 All. 572, (a decision by two Judges.)

(2.) The learned District Judge replies to this argument by saying that the village is a bhiyachari one, that is, one of the group of proprietors and, every proprietor has proprietary possession separately of separate plots of land. In his opinion the Munsif had decided that Mauladad Khan, defendant, had, by arrangement among the landholders, been a separate proprietor of this plot of land. This is not a correct interpretation of the finding of the Munsif. According to the Munsif there were several landlords of this particular plot of land also and the defendant was one of these landlords. On the basis of authority it must be held that the present suit it not one which could be instituted under Section 79 of the old Agra Tenancy Act. The suit was therefore, properly brought in the civil Court.

(3.) Another thing is that, even if it had not been so properly brought, the plaint ought to have been returned. The District Judge was apparently under some misapprehension when he said that the suit would be barred by time in the revenue Court. The plaint, when presented to the civil Court, was within one month of the cause of action. If the plaint had been returned and presented to the revenue Court the action would not have been barred by time, as the plaintiff would have been entitled to credit for the time which he had spent bona fide in litigating in a wrong Court of law.