RAMASRAY PRASAD CHAUDHURY Vs. RAMSURAT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are twelve appeals, eleven from the decision of the District Judge of Darbhanga and one from the decision of the Additional District Judge. They all arise out of suits for ejectment of the cultivators in possession of portions of Plot No. 198, in Bakarpur. This village formally belonged jointly to the Maharaja of Darbhanga and the plaintiff whose property was partitioned at about the time of the preparation of the Record-of-Rights. Plot No. 198 the backwater of a river known as Daria Margang, was left in joint possession of the two zamindars. The backwater gradually silted up and the defendants took possession of the land which formed adjacent to their holdings.

(2.) In some instances settlement was made on behalf of the Maharaja of Darbhanga of newly formed land within this plot. In 1929 there was a second partition by which the eastern portion of the plot was allotted exclusively to the plaintiff. The Courts below have found for those plots which lie adjacent to the existing holdings of the defendants that the newly formed area has become in each instance an accretion to the holding by virtue of the provisions of Clause (4) of Regn. 11 of 1825 and for the rest that the settlements were made by the Maharaja of Darbhanga in good faith and accepted in good faith by the tenants; acquiesced in by the plaintiff and that the defendants have acquired occupancy right. Mr. L.K. Jha on behalf of the plaintiff-appellant argues that in many instances the provisions of Regn. 11 of 1825 cannot properly be applied to these plots, because the holdings to which the newly formed land accreted were in many instances held under the Darbhanga estate from the time of the earlier partition. This argument applies to the land with which we are concerned in Second Appeal Nos. 15, 22, part of the land of Second Appeal No. 24 and the land in Second Appeal No. 678.

(3.) On the question of limitation on which the findings of the Courts below are against the plaintiff, Mr. Jha suggests that the defendants could not prescribe for a limited interest and further that their possession should be regarded as having been annually interrupted by the inundation of the land. Where the defendants have been found entitled to hold by virtue of settlement, Mr. Jha argued that the defendants cannot properly claim title by the fact that they have been inducted on the land by a co-sharer of the plaintiff. On the question of accretion I doubt whether the defendants can claim the benefit of the provisions of Clause (4) of Regn. 11 of 1825, because in each instance the accreted portion lay under proprietors other than the proprietor of the parent holding.