TULLA SOBHARAM PANDYA Vs. COLLECTOR OF KAIRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs are land-holders in the village of Badalpur in the Kaira District and they sued for an injunction to restrain the Collector from acting as he proposes to do by way of levying assessment from them. The Talukdari Settlement Officer gave them notice to this effect dated the 20th May 1913. Their case is that they hold their lands rent-free. The defendant, who originally was the Talukdari Settlement Officer and who has now been replaced by the Collector, maintained that the village of Badalpur had been attached under the powers conferred by Section 144 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code and that in virtue of Section 160 of that Code he had power to levy assessment on the lands of the plaintiffs. The District Court decided the case in favour of the defendant and the plaintiffs appealed to this Court. The evidence at that stage was so extremely scanty that eventually this Court found itself unable to decide the appeal and remanded eight issues to be determined by the District Judge. Those issues have been found on in a sense adverse to the plaintiff s, who again appear as appellants in this Court.

(2.) The first thing we have to determine is the nature of the agreement or settlement for this village of Badalpur. It must have been made in the early part of last century but there is no document relating to it, and there are no Kabulayats signed by the Talukdars of the village. We have not even an extract from the register of Talukdars. There is mention made of the Mehwasi villages, of which Badalpur is one, in Government official correspondence, from which extracts are filed of the years 1821 (Exhs. 37-8) ; 1822 (Exh. 39); and 1823 (Exh. 40). Then we have an extract from a Jama-bandi statement of 1821-22 (Exh. 41) and Kalambandhi of 1828 (Exh. 18). We have also general historical knowledge to go by. Wo know that the settlements or agreements for Mehwasi villages were made with the Mehwasi Chiefs or Heads of the villages and were usually made for the village as a whole in each case and were not made for any particular lands. The payment due for each village was annual, was a fixed lump sum or substantially fixed in amount (there may be small variations from year to year) and was regarded as Jama or land revenne though based on the amount of tribute which the Chief formerly paid and not on an estimate of assessable lands.

(3.) The evidence in the case indicates, so far as it goes, that the settlement or agreement for Badalpur was of the normal kind : that it was for the whole village and for a fixed annual payment for which the Mehwasi Chief of the village was responsible. Were it otherwise, there would be definite evidence of it forthcoming as is to be expected where there is a variation from the normal.