GOVINDRAO BAPUJI GAIKWAD Vs. MANOHAR MAHADEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment will cover both the second Appeals Nos. 198 and 199 of 1948 as the single judgments in Courts below covered both suits and both appeals.

(2.) IN the year 1863, Mouza Atri was held by a joint family consisting of three brothers. In that year in a partition the lands now in dispute were allotted to one of the brothers Jairam in lieu of his share in this village and in another village which the family held. By that agreement, the lands were to be held revenue-free and were heritable and transferable. In the Settlement of 1896-97 the lands were entered as being in Malik Makbuza right and being free from revenue against the Malguzar in perpetuity, and this was repeated in the succeeding Settlement in the year 1916-17. During the course of this Settlement proceedings the proprietor, who was a member of the family which held the village in 1863, claimed that the revenue free grant as against him should cease. The holders of the lands in dispute were the descendants of Jairam. It was then suggested that the original agreement had been modified subsequent to the last Settlement, but the settlement officer held that he could not go behind the terms of the previous Settlement and declared that the lands should" be held Muafi.

(3.) THE plaintiffs succeeded in both the Courts below, and the defendants have now preferred a second appeal, and it is the defendants' contention that the claim to hold the lands in perpetuity runs with the land and not with the person or descendants of the grantee.