PADAMLOCHAN MAHAPATRA Vs. BUDHRAM CHRISTIAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These nine appeals by the plaintiff raise the vexed question as to whether the lands in dispute held by the defendant respondents, entered in the record-of-rights as "Naukrana waste uthane bhar malikke mila hai" (service-tenure granted for carrying malik's burden) could be resumed by the landlord, appellant when he no longer required the services for which the grants were made.

(2.) Ten title suits were brought by the same landlord against different raiyats in the village holding pieces of "Naukrana" lands, described fully in the schedule to the plaints. The defendant Mahu Uraon has not come up in second appeal. The plaintiff is the present mortgagee with possession from the khorposhdar under the Maharaja of Chota Nagpur. The plaintiff's allegation was that the defendant- respondents had refused to render the services for which the grants had been made. He, therefore, sought to resume the lands. The suits were resisted by the raiyat defendanta on various grounds. The main defence taken on their behalf, with which we are now concerned, was that they were all the time willing to work and render the services for which the grants had been made but that it was the plaintiff himself who refuged to accept the services and treated them as having been dismissed. Their plea was that the grants were absolute and were not resumable except when services were refused on demand. On behalf of the plaintiff, the contention was that it was open to him to resume the tenures as they were created in lieu of wages for the performance of services, which were no longer required by him, and even if the defendants were willing to perform the services he was entitled to resume, and the question as to whether the grantee of the tenures refused to perform the services on demand did not arise.

(3.) It appears that the grants in question were made about half a century ago and were in existence at the time of the preparation of the Cadastral Survey record-of- rights. No documents about these settlements have been produced and all that we know about them is the description given of them as "Naukrana" in the record-of- rights. The question, therefore, to be decided is whether the description "Naukrana" makes it a grant of an estate burdened with a certain service, or, merely a tenure for the purpose of remunerating personal services to be rendered to the zamindar.