MAHABIR SINGH Vs. SRI RAMSUMRAN ANANTNIDHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff-respondents are co-sharer proprietors having 3 annas 6 gandas interest in Tauzi No. 1321 which is diara land of which they and their co-sharers have taken temporary settlement. The periods of settlement, it seems, are of about 10 years. The suit refers to a holding which in the; finally published Survey Record of Rights prepared under Ch. 10, Ben. Ten. Act, and finally, published on. 20 January 1988 is shown as a cash rent, paying holding. The tenants whose names were entered in that record subsequently found their title assailed by the defendants first party, who after certain proceedings under Section 145, obtained a decree declaring, their title and awarding them possession of the holding in 1925. In that, suit they based their own title on a hukumnama granted to them by the landlord in 1918 in which there was a stipulation for payment of batai rent.

(2.) Now the plaintiffs sue the successful claimants of the holding for the rent of the-years 1339 to 1342. A portion of the claim having been dismissed as barred by limitation a, decree has been passed in respect of years 1341 and 1342 only. The defendants pleaded, that the rent of the holding was that entered in the settlement rent roll and that the plaintiff was not entitled to produce rent; but the Courts below have held, that in face of the hukumnama which was propounded in the title suit as the basis oft the title of these defendants it did not lie in their mouth now to allege that the; rent was not a produce rent. It was said, that when the presumption of correctness of the Record of Rights had been rebutted in so far as it purported to show the Ram chandrapur raiyats as tenants of the holding the whole should be treated as cancelled and disproved; and the rent payable would be that agreed between the tenant and these landlord. Accordingly a decree was passed for bhaoli rent.

(3.) The question in this appeal is whether the defendants are entitled to retain the holding oh payment of the cash rent entered, in the Record of Rights. The Courts below have not correctly appreciated the difference between survey and settlement proceedings in a permanently settled area and similar proceedings in a temporarily settled; estate in connexion with which a settlement of land revenue is being made, In the former proceedings there is a presumption, of correctness attaching to the Record of Rights under Section 103-B which is rebuttable by evidence in respect of any and every portion of the entry. But in the latter case it is not simply a matter of recording existing rents. The first duty of the revenue officer under Section 104 is to settle fair and equitable rents for tenants of every class. Such fair rents may be or may not be the same as rents agreed on between the landlord and the tenant but if they differ there is no doubt whatever which of the two is to prevail. All rents settled under Secs.104-A to 104-G are by virtue of Section 104-J to be deemed to have been correctly settled and to be fair and equitable rents within the meaning of this Act.