JUGAL KISHORE NARAIN SINGH Vs. CHAROO CHANDRA SUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for determination in the present case is whether a lease of certain village in the district of Gaya in Bihar is binding on the respondents. The land involved had been the property of one Nebaran Chandra Biswas who died without issue leaving a widow Mt. Srimati Kiransasi Dasi who had a Hindu widow's estate in the property after his death. On her death the respondents who were the reversioners of the estate to her late husband were entitled to the property. The husband died in 1895. His widow was then about 24 years of age. On 7th April 1919, she executed a lease for 11 years of the village of Chokti Amarwan, Thana Nawaba, in favour of the predecessor of the appellants at a yearly rent of Rs. 3350 payable in five annual instalments. The lease provided that the tenant should deposit a sum of Rs. 3350 to be held by the lessor without interest and that this sum should be restored to the tenant by a deduction from the three last instalments payable in each of the two last years of the lease. It also contained a number of covenants by the tenant imposing upon him obligations as to the cultivation, management and improvement of the land together with a liability to meet the outgoings except Government dues and to undertake the expense of certain costs of litigation.

(2.) The lease contains a statement signed by Amulya Krishna Mithra, pleader, Howrah Court, that it was read over and explained to the lessor, and it further bears an endorsement signed presumably by the Registrar of Calcutta or his representative to the effect that the lessor admitted the execution and that the Registrar was satisfied that the document had been executed voluntarily by her. The lease did not come to an end until May 1930, and the widow died on 12 September 1924, some six years before its termination. After her death the appellants' predecessor admittedly remained in possession of the property until December 1926, when the respondents dispossessed him. Meanwhile on the 20 December 1924 two of the respondents, viz. Prasanna Kumar Sur and Charoo Chandra Sur, executed a power of attorney in favour of Narendra Nath Neogi, defendant 4. The power of attorney is a limited one but at any rate entitled the grantee to collect money and give a receipt for it. Defendant 3 was not a party to this document but it appears from the evidence that he also gave a power of attorney which however was returned to him about a year after its execution and was not acted upon after that time. Whatever the effect however of the powers of attorney, defendant 4 appears to have managed the affairs of his co-defendants including all that had to be done under the lease now in dispute, and to have received the rent payable under it. He so stated in evidence and was not contradicted and receipts dated 4 November 1925 and in March, June, July, September a October, 1926 were produced by him in corroboration of his story.

(3.) Shortly after the appellants' predecessor was dispossessed, a ryot of certain land in the village the subject-matter of the lease, instituted proceedings before the Sub-divisional Officer of Nawadah against the respondents asking for the division of the produce of the land between himself and the landlords under S. 69, Ben. Ten. Act, 1855. About the same time the appellants' predecessor began proceedings under the Criminal Procedure Code alleging that he feared a breach of the peace by the respondents in connexion with his possession of the village. In both these proceedings the respondents filed petitions in opposition alleging that the lease had terminated on the death of the widow, that they had thereafter orally granted two successive yearly leases to the appellants' predecessor and that on the termination of the second had taken peaceful possession of the said village. Thereafter on 1 September 1929, the appellants' predecessor instituted the present suit claiming mesne profits from the date of dispossession until the termination of the lease and a return of the deposit made in respect of rent at the beginning of the lease. In answer to that claim the respondents asserted that the widow did not act as a prudent manager in making the lease nor was it for the benefit of the estate, denied that they ever conferred any power or authority to defendant 4 to ratify or grant leases, denied that they had themselves ever ratified the lease in question and said that they had withdrawn the powers of attorney, whatever their effect, by 6 June 1927. The defence contained no allegation that the widow had not properly understood or had not voluntarily executed the lease.