RAJENDRA NARAYAN Vs. HARGOBIND CHOUDHURY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of Rai Bahadur R.L. Chatterjee, District Judge of Darbhanga, dated 28 May 1938, confirming a decision of Babu Shibnandan Prasad Singh, Munsif of Samastipur, dated 7 December 1936.

(2.) The plaintiff is the appellant. He sued for recovery of possession of 3 bighas 10 kathas and 4 dhurs of land situated in mauza Harouli, by ejecting the defendants, and also for mesne profits upon the following allegations. Mauza Harouli (tauzi No. 6752) was held jointly by several proprietors, the plaintiffs share being 7 annas and odd. For facility of cultivation the proprietors had by private arrangement divided the zerat lands of the village amongst themselves.

(3.) In the year 1923 there were proceedings under the Estates Partition Act., and on their conclusion in 1927 the different proprietors were given delivery of possession over the takhtas or allotments assigned to them respectively. The lands in suit were the zerat lands of the maliks, and were recorded in the survey papers as bakasht. They were assigned to the takhta of the plaintiff, but in the course of the batwara proceedings, at the time the raibandi was going on, on the application of the father of the defendants (since deceased), the lands in suit together with some other lands making 4 bighas in all, were recorded as the raiyati lands of the defendants on the allegation that they had been given a raiyati settlement at a total jama of Rs. 16 per annum by one of the plaintiff's cosharers, who was then in separate possession of these lands under the private arrangement. This entry was made despite an objection on the part of the proprietors. The plaintiff claimed that the defendants story of settlement from a cosharer was not correct, but that in any case his cosharer could not create any tenancy right binding against him.