ANNADA PRASANNA LAHIRI Vs. BADULLA MANDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals are preferred by the plaintiff: he brought the suits from which they arise to eject the defendants from various parcels of land, which they hold under him. His case is that the defendants are under-raiyats, and that his own interest is that of a raiyat. The Courts below have found that the plaintiff served notices on the defendants, but they have upheld the defence plea that the plaintiff is a tenure-holder and that the defendants are raiyats, not under raiyats.

(2.) The learned Subordinate Judge has compiled a very careful narrative of the transactions affecting the tenancy since 1888 when the Ghoses, who may be called the plaintiff s predecessors, executed a mortgage in favour of one Tarini Kanta, and it is unnecessary to reproduce the narrative in this judgment.

(3.) Three points have been pressed on behalf of the plaintiff, namely, (1) that it was not open to the lower Courts to go into the conduct. of the parties for the purpose of determining the origin of the tenancy. (2) That the Kabuliyats executed by the Ghoses speak of raiyati interests and oral evidence could not be admitted to vary the terms of the contracts. (3) That if any presumption arises from the area of the holding, it is rebutted by the admissions of the defendants made in certain rent suits of 1911.