TRIMBAK RAMCHANDRA PANDIT Vs. SHEKH GULAM ZILANI WAIKER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit in ejectment brought by an Inamdar against persons claiming to hold as Mirasi or permanent tenants.

(2.) It was conceded in the lower Court that the Inam rights in the lands in suit appertain to a Saranjam held on political tenure and that the present incumbent of the Saranjam is the plaintiff. The defendants, however, contend that the Inam rights are merely the right to receive the royal share of the revenue and that the proprietary rights in the soil were prior to the date of the Inam grant vested in the grantee of the Inam, have descended to his heirs independently of the Inam, and have furnished the permanent lease-hold or Mirasi interest by virtue of which the defendants resist the plaintiffs claim to eject them. The lower appellate Court held it proved that the Saranjam was created prior to 1785 and that the lands in suit, at any rate since that year, came to be considered as appertaining to the Saranjam. As the lease under which the defendants claim dates only from 1848, the finding of fact of the lower Court disposes of the point.

(3.) If the question were, as urged by counsel for the defendants, a mixed question of fact and law it must, nevertheless, be decided against the defendants. The contention involves the denial of the title to the reversionary rights in the lands in the defendants occupation of the successive Saranjamdars approved by Government. The defendants have, however, been continuously paying rent for their holding to the successive Saranjamdars, including the plaintiff. They are thus estopped by attornment from disputing the plaintiff's title. See In re Vasitdev v. Babaji (1871) 8 Bom. H.C. A.C.J. 175 and Doe dem. Marlow V/s. Wiggins (1843) 4 Q.B. 367. In so far as the defendants case depends upon the construction of the Sanad of 1785, the decision of the lower Court rests upon the authority of the judgment of the Privy Council in favour of Sheikh Ajrnodin, the Saranjamdar who succeeded the lessor, against Shekh Sultan Sani, their lessor's devisee, with reference to the lands in suit. A reference to the report of the proceedings in that litigation will show that the lands in suit were held not to be the private heritable and devisable property of the defendants lessor but to be held on political tenure as part of the Saranjain. See Shekh Sultan Sani V/s. Shekh Ajtnodin (1891) I.L.R. 17 Bom. 431.