KUMAR GOPIKA RAMAN ROY Vs. ATAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court at Calcutta affirming a decree of the First Subordinate Judge at Sylhet and dismissing the plaintiff's suit, which both Courts held to be barred by limitation.

(2.) The plaintiff sued as the owner of a one-seventh share of the permanently settled estate No. 85 of the Collectorate of Sylhet to eject defendants Nos. 1 to 160 from 143 holdings in the occupation at the date of the plaint of defendants Nos. 1 to 160, as shown in the first schedule to the plaint. Defendant No. 161 was joined as a purchaser from defendant No. 148, defendants Nos. 162 to 186 as the co sharers with the plaintiff in the estate, and defendant No. 187 as vendor to the plaintiff's father in 1896.

(3.) The plaint alleged that by an amicable arrangement the lands in schedule I had been allotted to a predecessor of the plaintiff in respect of a one-seventh share, which was afterwards acquired by the plaintiff's father in 1896, that they had all along been in the occupation of the defendants Nos. 1 to 160 as tenants, that in 189(5 these defendants had rendered themselves liable to forfeiture by denying their landlord's title, that the plaintiff's father had enforced their forfeiture and determined the tenancies by instituting 120 suits in 1904, which were afterwards withdrawn by leave with liberty to bring a fresh suit, and that the present suit was within time because brought within twelve years of the determination of the tenancies by the institution of the aforesaid suits. There was also a plea that the suit was not barred because the plaintiff was entitled under Section 14 of the Indian Limitation Act to exclude the time spent in prosecuting the former suits, but this has not been relied on before their Lordships.