MAHARAJA OF JEYPORE Vs. RUKMINI PATTAMAHEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from a decision of the High Court of Judicature at Madras which varied a decree of the Court of the Agent to the Governor of Madras.

(2.) THE suit was brought by the present appellant against the husband of the present respondent for possession of the pargana of Bissemkatak, and for arrears of rent and mesne profits.

(3.) THE plaint proceeded to aver that the defendant had been directed in 1903 to render services by attending the ensuing Dashara darbar, at Jeypore, that he did not attend the darbar, or remit the kattubadi that year or in 1904, but had replied to the effect that Bissemkatak pargana was not held on service tenure, but that it was an independent zamindari, which had only to pay to the zamindar of Jeypore a fixed, unchanging, and unchangeable kattubadi of Rs. 2200 as per permanent settlement records, and had remitted therewith Rs. 3300 only; that he had been warned of the consequences of his conduct and given an opportunity for withdrawing his repudiation, but that he persisted in repudiating the plaintiff's title to the pargana and in denying his liability as service holder under the plaintiff, and also in setting up a title in himself to the pargana as an independent zamindar subject only to the payment to the plaintiff of a fixed, unchanging, and unchangeable kattubadi of Rs. 2200 annually.