BIR BIKRAM KISHORE MANIKYA BAHADUR Vs. RAJJAB ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Letters Patent Appeal from the judgment of my learned brother Mitter, J. sitting on second appeal. This appeal is brought by the plaintiff. The suit was brought in the Court of the Munsiff at Comilla for recovery of arrears of rent due in respect of the years 1332 to 1332 T.B. with cesses and damages. There was a claim for enhancement of rent on the ground of the rise in the price of staple food crops.

(2.) It appears that the defendants were holding certain agricultural land under the plaintiff and were also holding an undivided share of the homestead land. According to various decisions of this Court, it is now well settled that, where the land let to a tenant comprises an undivided share in certain land, the letting is not the letting of a holding within the meaning of of the definition in the Bengal Tenancy Act. On that ground, the Courts below have unanimously refused to give effect to the prayer for enhancement of rent under Section 30(b) Ben. Ten. Act.

(3.) The plaintiff in this appeal makes two points. One is that the recent Act amending the Bengal Tenancy Act has, altered the definition of the word holding so that, after that Act has come into force, it can no longer be said that such a tenancy as the present is not a holding within the meaning of the definition. Mr. Ramesh Chunder Sen who appears for the plaintiff- appellant contended before us that, though the amending Act came into force after this suit was decided, nevertheless it was open to us and we were obliged to give effect to the new definition. In my opinion, there are no words in the amending Act which show or even tend to show that the amendment of the definition is to be applied with retrospective effect; still less is there anything to show that on the ground of the amendment, the Court is to disturb a decision between the parties correctly arrived at according to law on the date of the decision. That point, therefore, in my opinion, fails.