MAHABIR DAS Vs. UDIT NARAIN VERMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiff against the judgment and decree of the learned Subordinate Judge of Monghyr dated 31 May 1935 by which he dismissed the suit of the appellant which was instituted on 17 March 1934 to eject the defendants first party.

(2.) The defendants second party were impleaded in the action as bataidars under the defendants first party. Defendant 3, Balesar Prasad, has admittedly been impleaded uselessly as a defendant. It is convenient to set out here the circumstances which led up to the institution of this suit and which though apparently of a complicated nature are extremely simple. The lands in dispute, with an area of 50 bighas 15 kathas and 10 dhurs is situated in village Lakho within the proprietary right of mahant Jagannath Das of Bishanpur Asthal in Begusarai thana. This mahant in the year 1925 executed a registered document, which has been spoken of in these proceedings as a mahantnama, by which he appointed the appellant, his trustworthy chela, as a mahant from that date and authorized him to get his name registered in the Collectorate department which was immediately done. The old mahant owing to ill health then proceeded to Calcutta; on his return he found the attitude of the new mahant entirely changed towards him. For this reason as well as for other reasons which need not be stated here the old mahant cancelled the mahantnama and this led to the institution of a number of criminal proceedings between the old and the new mahant beginning from July 1927.

(3.) Ultimately the matter was taken to the Civil Courts and a regular title suit No. 99 of 1928 was instituted by the old mahant on 24 November 1928 for a declaration that the old mahant was still the mahant of the Bishanpur Asthal, that the new mahant had no right whatsoever to the mahantship of the said Asthal and its properties, that the new mahant by the deed dated 12 July 1925 was constituted as a future mahant after the death of the old mahant, that the said deed did not confer any present right or title to the properties attached to the schedule of the plaint or to the asthal, that by the deed dated 23 July 1927 the nomination of the defendant as a future mahant has been cancelled and the defendant has no right to the mahantship of the asthal in future, that the defendant has fraudulently and wrongly got himself recorded as proprietor and that the plaintiff is entitled to have the name of the defendant removed from the Collectorate register wherein he has been recorded as proprietor. The plaint also asked for confirmation of possession over the properties of the asthal and for other incidental reliefs.