BALJIT Vs. MAHIPAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this suit the plaintiffs sought the ejectment of the defendants from certain land on the allegation that it formed part of an occupancy holding of which the plaintiffs are the tenants, while the defendants are in possession as trespassers. The case set up was that the defendants had originally entered into possession as sub-tenants, but that when the plaintiffs took proceedings to eject them as such by a suit brought under the Tenancy Act in a Revenue Court, the defendants denied the plaintiffs title and set up a false claim to be in possession as joint tenants of the holding. It was admitted that this plea had prevailed in the Revenue Court which dismissed the suit for ejectment: as a matter of fact it found in favour of the plea of joint tenancy set up by the defendants. The plaintiffs in the present suit adhered to their claim that the defendants were originally their sub-tenants in respect of the land in suit; they claimed that the nature of the defendants possession had changed and had become that of trespassers, either from the date on which they denied the title of the plaintiffs in their pleading before the Revenue Court, or from the date of the Revenue Court s decision.

(2.) Now it seems sufficiently obvious that if the defendants were originally sub- tenants of this land, they did not become trespassers on the date on which they denied the fact in their Revenue Court pleadings. To hold otherwise would involve this consequence, that a tenant against whom a suit for ejectment was filed in a Revenue Court could oust the jurisdiction of that court by denying the plaintiffs title. This suggestion is opposed to the, entire spirit of the Tenancy Act and to the express provisions of Sections 56 and 199 of the same. Therefore it has been laid down in a number of cases that an agricultural tenancy subject to the provisions of the United Provinces Tenancy Act (Local Act No. II of 1901) is not terminated merely by the lessee s denial of the lessor s title. This was the ratio decidendi in the case of Narain Singh v. Govind Ram (1911) I.L.R., 33 All., 523, a case precisely on all fours with the present. I have repeatedly affirmed the same principle myself, as for instance in Bechu Sahu v. Nandram Das (1914) 12 A.L.J., 902, Ali Jafar v. Phulmanta Kuer (1915) 13 A.L.J., 843. The plaintiffs are therefore reduced to contend--and the sixth paragraph of their plaint shows that this was the position on which they intended to rely--that a change in the status of the defendants was effected on the 14th of July, 1914, when the Revenue Court (erroneously) decided that the defendants were not sub-tenants of the land in suit. This raises the further question, whether the plaintiffs are entitled to succeed upon the plea that the Revenue Court erroneously decided a question which it was the sole court competent by law to determine. It was not merely a matter in respect of which a suit under the Tenancy Act "might be" brought, within the meaning of the concluding words of Section 167 of the said Act; it was one in respect of which a suit had actually been brought and had been determined by the sole court competent to entertain the said suit. In my opinion the Civil Court cannot reconsider this question without violating the provisions of Section 167 of the Tenancy Act. This was the view taken by a Bench of this Court in Kishore Singh v. Bahadur Singh (1918) I.L.R.,4l All.,97, in which judgment all previous authorities are passed in review.

(3.) There is said to be authority to the contrary in the case of Kanhai Ram v. Durga Prasad (1915) I.L.R., 87 All., 223. I think that case is distinguishable on the facts; but I feel more concerned to note that it was decided ex parte, and that the contention repelled by the learned judges was that the decision of the Revenue Court operated as res judicata. There was no reference made to the provisions of Section 167 of the Tenancy Act.