PARBATI KUNWAR Vs. DEPUTY-COMMISSIONER OF KHERI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from a decree, dated April 2, 1915, of the Board of Revenue for the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, which set aside a decree, dated October 7, 1914, of the Court of the Commissioner of Lucknow, and restored a decree or order, dated June 4, 1914, of the Court of the Deputy-Commissioner of Sitapur.

(2.) THE suit in which this appeal has been brought was instituted in a Court of Revenue, which alone had jurisdiction to entertain the suit, a civil Court having no jurisdiction in the matter. In the suit the plaintiffs claimed a decree for the possession of the entire village mauza Bandhia Kalan, situate in pargana Nighasan, in the district of Kheri, by resumption of the Muafi, and in the alternative that the rent might be fixed at a proper amount under Section 107G of Act XXII. of 188C (the Oudh Rent Act, 1886), and other reliefs which need not be referred to. The Deputy-Commissioner of Sitapur, before whom the suit came for trial, did not grant a decree for resumption, but having found that the rent was liable to be enhanced under Section 107G of Act XXII. of 1886, by his decree declared that the defendant was a tenant of the mauza without any right of occupancy, and determined the rent to be payable at Rs. 2000 per annum. The only question to be considered in this appeal is whether the rent at which the mauza was held by the defendant of the plaintiffs at the date of suit was or was not liable to be enhanced, and that question depends upon the nature of the lease under which the mauza was held by the defendant.

(3.) UNDER that lease the defendant became the thikadar or person to whom the collection of rents in the mauza had been leased by Rani Dhan Kunwar, who was then the landlord. Rani Dhan Kunwar died in 1891. After her death the taluqa vested in Raghubar Singh, a plaintiff and one of the respondents, and in Raj Mangal Singh, represented in this suit and appeal by the Deputy-Commissioner of Kheri as the special manager of the Court of Wards of the estate of Majhgain.