MAHANT SIDHAKAMAL RAMANUJ DAS Vs. BATAKRISHNA MAHAPATRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiff who sued as proprietor for the rent of the period second kist of 1337 to first kist of 1341 in respect of a tenure described in the current Record of Right as a tanki bajyafti tenure and entered as bearing a rent of Rs. 7-3-0. The claim was laid in accordance with the settlement rent roll. The defendant resisted it, contending; that the land was tanki bahal and not tanki bajyafti and that its rent was Rs. 3-5-3. The Rent Deputy Collector considered him self precluded from giving effect to this plea of the defendant by Section 127, Orissa Tenancy Act, the settlement rent roll having been prepared in the course of a settlement of land revenue in the local area, under part 1 of Chap. 11 of the Act. Under this part a settlement rent roll is prepared which, after sanction by the confirming authority, is finally framed and incorporated in the Record of Rights.

(2.) Any person, aggrieved by entries in the Record of Rights can prefer within two months an appeal under Section 125 or within six months a suit under Section 126, such suit being limited to the grounds specified in Clause (3) of the latter Section. No such appeal or suit was preferred. The Rent Deputy Collector considered himself therefore bound by Section 127 which enacts that subject to the provisions of Section 126, all rents settled under the preceding Secs.shall be deemed to have been, correctly settled and to be fair and equitable rents. He passed a decree for the rent as claimed. He held that the operation of Section 127 was not affected by the result of a suit brought by the defendant in 1929 more than a year after the final publication of the rent roll, in which he obtained a declaration that the land was tanki bahal and not tanki bajyafti.

(3.) From this decision an appeal was preferred to the District Judge in which two contentions were raised. First, that rent was recoverable only for the period subsequent to 4 May 1932, and secondly, that the status of the defendant being that of a tanki bahal tenant, the rent which in earlier settlement records had been recorded as Rs. 3-5-3 could not be enhanced and should have been held notwithstanding the entry in the settlement rent roll to be still only Rs. 3-5-3. The District Judge accepted both these contentions and allowed the appeal. In second appeal the finding that rent is recoverable only for the period after 4 May 1932 is not challenged. We are concerned only with the question whether the annual rent payable is Rs. 7-3-0 or Rupees 3-5-3.