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Raghunath vs V. Ganesh And Ors.

High Court Of Judicature at Allahabad|27 November, 1919

JUDGMENT / ORDER

JUDGMENT
1. The facts of this appeal are as follows:-- The plaintiff is the owner of a two-anna share out : of an eight anna share in a certain village in the District of Hamirpur. His father died leaving him a minor and one Musammat Peari, apparently his mother, looked after his affairs. She mortgaged his share. Subsequently proceedings were taken under the Enoumbered Estates Act, Bundelkhand. The creditor was paid off by Government and Musammat Peari proceeded to re-pay Government by installments After she had paid up a part of the debt she died. Another sarbarahkar was appointed in her place and then the owners of the eight-anna share gave a zar-i-peshgi lease to the defendants-respondents before us of the whole eight annas. The plaintiff's sarbarahkar was a party to this lease. The plaintiff has now come of age and he has brought the present suit to eject the defendants-respondents from his two anna share and to obtain possession thereof for himself. An examination of the plaint will show that he has treated the transaction, under which the defendants obtained possession, as a lease. He has alleged, however, that his sarbarahkar Toraiyan had no power whatsoever to grant a If lease of his property or to transfer it in any way. He, therefore, pleads that the lease is not binding upon him and he seeks to eject the defendants as trespassers on the property. The suit was instituted in the Court of the Munsif at Hamirpur. The defendants' written statement may be boiled down to this. First of all, that the sarbarahkar bad full power to grant be lease, and, secondly, that even if he had not, still the plaintiff on coming of age had confirmed the lease and had accepted rent under it : though in definite terms the defendants did not plead that they were the plaintiff's tenants, yet the: whole sum and substance of their defence is that they are his tenants and further-more they clearly plead that the suit was not cognizable by the Civil Court but was cognizable only by the Revenue Court. The Court of first instance held that the suit was not cognizable by the Civil Court hut instead of returning the plaint to be filed in the proper Court, it dismissed the suit. From this decree the plaintiff filed an appeal as he was fully entitled to do. He urged in the grounds of appeal that the suit as it stood was cognizable by a Civil Court and should have been entertained by the Munsif. At the time that the appeal was argued it was further urged that even if the Munsif's decision was a correct one, his decree dismissing the suit was bad and the plaint should be returned for presentation to the proper Court. The Appellate Court agreed with the Munsif that the suit was not cognizable by the Civil Court. It agreed with the appellant that the Munsif ought to have returned the plaint and not to have dismissed the suit : and accepting this contention, it ordered the plaint to be returned to the plaintiff. The plaintiff has come here on appeal from this order. A : preliminary objection was taken that no appeal would lie from the order of the Court below on the ground that if the Court of first instance had done its duty and passed a proper order, no second appeal could have lain against an order passed by the lower Appellate Court on appeal from the Munsif's order. We do not think that there is any substance in this point, as we have to take the facts as they are and not as they ought to have been, and the case is very similar to that of Behari Lal v. Khub Chand 6 A. 48. We must come to the merits of the appeal. In substance the plaint is an allegation by the plaintiff that the defendants are not his tenants. He distinctly pleads that they are trespassers and that he seeks to eject them. On the plaint, as it stands, we do not think that the suit could have been instituted in the Revenue Court. Neither Section 58 nor Section 34 of the tenancy Act, to which we have been referred, will enable the plaintiff to file his present plaint in the Revenue Court and claim to have a decision on it. We have not been referred to any other section of the Tenancy Act which would enable him to bring this suit under that Act. In substance the defendants' plea is that they are the tenants of the plaintiff under the lease in question and that it is a valid and binding transaction. It seems to us, therefore, quite clear that in these circumstances the Civil Court ought to have entertained the suit and ought to have taken Action under Section 202 of the tenancy Act, and the question of the defendants' tenancy would then really be decided by a Revenue Court. The Courts below have merely erred in the procedure adopted by them, but still the procedure Laid 'down by law must be followed. It must be noted that there has been no previous litigation between the parties either in the Revenue or Civil Court in respect of the matter in dispute in this suit. The rulings in Bam Singh v. Girraj Singh 26 Ind. Cas. 731 : 37 A. 41 : 12 A.L.J. 1252 and Sher Khan v. Debt Prasad 28 Ind. Cas. 552 : 13 A.L.J. 364 : 37 A. 254 do not apply to the present case, for in each of the suits with which those decisions are concerned, there was (in the end at least) an admitted tenancy and the plaintiffs were merely making an attempt to get round a decision of the Revenue Court already passed. In this view we allow the appeal. We set aside the orders and the decrees of the Courts below. We direct that the record be returned to the Court of first instance through the lower Appellate Court with directions to re admit the suit on its original number and to proceed to hear and decide it according to law, keeping in view our remarks in respect of the use of Section 202 of the tenancy Act. Costs of this appeal as well as the costs so far incurred up to the present date by the parties in all Courts will abide the result of the suit.
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Title

Raghunath vs V. Ganesh And Ors.

Court

High Court Of Judicature at Allahabad

JudgmentDate
27 November, 1919
Judges
  • Tudball
  • Ryves