NAJMUN-NISSA Vs. AMNA BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of an application for execution of a decree by the respondent Musammat Najm-un-nissa Bibi, who has obtained a decree for dower against the other heirs of her deceased husband. The decree is dated 16 August 1904. In execution of that decree she has attached some 21 villages in the hands of the judgment-debtors appertaining to taluqa Ganeshpur. The judgment-debtors have objected to this attachment on the ground that the property constitutes a political pension within the meaning of Section 266(g) of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1882. The lower court has held against them and they have come on appeal to this court.

(2.) The sole question for decision is whether the property attached can be considered to be a political pension within the meaning of Section 266(g) of the Code.

(3.) The parties are the descendants of one Kadir Bakhsh, a Pindari Chief, who in the earlier part of the nineteenth century was granted by the Government of India a pension of Rs. 4,000 per annum. In the year 1819, by a sanad dated the 14 of January of that year the Government of India bestowed on Kadir Baksh, in lieu of his so-called pension, a revenue free jagir consisting of 27 villages. The sanad runs as follows (after relating the facts of the grant to Kadir Baksh), "on the decease of Kadir Bakhsh the estate will be continued in perpetuity in the manner of an hereditary holding, zamindari mauroosi, in possession of his heirs and successors, provided that an adequate payment of revenue be made to Government." Subsequently in the year 1822, at the request of Kadir Baksh himself, revenue amounting to Rs. 1,877-8-0 was assessed on this estate, to come into force on the decease of Kadir Baksh. From that time She heirs of Kadir Baksh, have held this estate on the payment of this permanent revenue to Government. Subsequently in the year 1862, the predecessors in title of the present parties brought a suit against the Government claiming the full proprietary right as zamindars over an area of 8,000 odd bighas (part of the estate granted by the sanad). That case proceeded on the assumption that Kadir Baksh was the full owner of 3,933 bighas, the balance of the property. The question of the full ownership of this portion of the estate was not in dispute. The plaintiffs in that case obtained from their Lordships of the Privy Council on the 22nd of February 1870, a decree for possession as full proprietors and zamindars of the entire area of 8,000 odd bighas. It also appears that subsequently to this various portions of this estate have been sold by public auction and have also been transferred by co- sharers therein. So that it is clear that the property has all along been treated by the members of this family as an ordinary zamindari holding, subject simply to the payment of Government revenue.