BRINDABAN BEHARI LAL Vs. BHAWANI SAHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There cannot be much doubt as to the facts of this case. The difficulty lies in determining the relation between the parties and their respective rights.

(2.) It appears that some years before the grant of the Dewani to the East India Company i.e., 12 August 1765, Karta Narain who held certain villages under the Mahomedan Government as zemindar made a grant of the village Patesha which is the subject matter of dispute in the present case to one Dhansiram. The grant was rent-free, and Dhansiram and his heirs continued to be in possession of the village as rent-free from the time of the grant to the date of the Dewani and thereafter until the present day. The precise nature of the grant cannot be ascertained as there is an absence from the record of the grant itself. It is not, however, an Imperial grant which would be covered by Regulation XXXVII of 1793. It was a grant by a zemindar which would be covered by Regulation XIX of 1793 and, if the grantee was in possession under a rent-free title, Section 2 of Regulation XIX of 1793 would, as we shall presently show, exonerate the land from liability to pay any share of the Government revenue.

(3.) After the grant of the Dewani to the East India Company, attempts were made to re- assess all the lands in the Bengal Province and the assessment that we come across in the Behar Districts is an assessment made under Nawab Harier Jung. The Kanongoes register of 1773 which was prepared under the superintendence of Nawab Harier Jung shows that a Settlement was made for 30 years of the villages held at one time by Karta Narain and which included the village Patesha. This village along with another village Khaja Serai was assessed at sicca Rs 160, i.e., Rs. 80 sicca for each of the villages. The assessment was accepted by the zemindar who was recognized as being in possession of these villages by the Collector, but as a matter of fact, possession of Patesha was with the heirs of Dhansiram. The grantee from Karta Narain or his legal representatives might have asked the revenue authorities to either exonerate Patesha from liability to assessment or to assess it separately. But they were satisfied with holding the village rent-free under the zemindar the entire assessed amount of these villages falling on the zemindari. For reasons -which it is not quite plain on the record, the zemindar of Khaja Serai took upon himself the liability to pay the revenue assessed on Patesha.