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Thakur Din vs Mannu Lal

High Court Of Judicature at Allahabad|30 April, 1897

JUDGMENT / ORDER

JUDGMENT Aikman, J.
1. The plaintiff Thakur Din, who is appellant here, was a tenant of agricultural land of which the defendant respondent was landholder. The defendant served the plaintiff with a notice of ejectment from his holding under the provisions of Section 36 of the Rent Act, The tenant thereon presented an application under the provisions of Section 89 of that Act, contesting his liability to be ejected. The question was determined by the Assistant Collector adversely to the tenant, and the Assistant Collector's decision was upheld on appeal by the Commissioner. On the 18th of November 1893, the Board of Revenue set aside the orders of the subordinate Courts of Revenue, and held that the plaintiff was a tenant with right of occupancy, and that the notice of ejectment was invalid. Meanwhile the landholder had taken proceedings under Section 40 of the Rent Act, and caused the plaintiff to be ejected from his holding on the 24th of September 1892. After the plaintiff had won his case in the Board of Revenue, he applied to be replaced in possession of his holding, and he obtained possession on the 17th of February 1894. He brought the present suit in the Civil Court for the recovery of compensation for the period daring which he had been out of possession of his holding. He obtained a decree from the Subordinate Judge, but on appeal the District Judge of Banda set aside this decree and dismissed the plaintiff's suit, holding that the plaintiff's remedy was an application under Clause (m) of Section 95 of the Rent Act, and that therefore the Civil Court had no jurisdiction. The learned District Judge relied on a decision of the Board of Revenue in Kharesuri v. Maharaja Partab Narain Singh, No. 4 of the Selected Decisions of the Board of Revenue for 1892. That case arose under the Oudh Rent Act, which materially differs from Act No. XII of 1881, inasmuch as Sub-section (2) of Section 60 of the Oudh Act reserves to the tenant a right to institute a suit against his landlord to recover compensation for illegal ejectment under Sub-section (1) of that section. Sub-section (1) corresponds to Section 40 of Act No. XII of 1881, but the latter section contains no provision at all corresponding to the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Section 60 of the Oudh Rent Act; the ruling therefore upon which the Lower Appellate Court relies, has no bearing upon the present case.
2. The question for decision in this appeal is whether a dispossession by process of Court can be considered to be a "wrongful dispossession" within the meaning of Clause (m) of Section 95. In my opinion it cannot be so considered. This was held in a previous decision of the Board of Revenue in Dhundu Bhagat v. Lalji Pande, 1 Legal Remembrancer R. & R. p. 183. In Sawai Ram v. Gir Prasad Singh I.L.R. 2 All. 707, it was held by this Court that where an occupancy tenant had been dispossessed by a Civil Court and had afterwards been reinstated, this dispossession was not a wrongful dispossession "within the meaning of Clauses (m) and (n) of Section 95. Clause (m) provides for an application for compensation for wrongful dispossession: the next Clause (n) refers to an application for the recovery of the occupancy of any and of which a tenant has been wrongfully dispossessed. I think the expressions "wrongful dispossession" in Clause (m) and "wrongfully dispossessed "must be read in the same sense, and in my opinion no application could be entertained under Clause (m) to recover possession of land from which a tenant had been dispossessed by order of Court. Another consideration which leads me to the same view is the short period of limitation provided by Clause (n) of Section 96, for applications under Clauses (m) and (n) of Section 95. Clause (e) of Section 96 declares that such applications shall not be brought after six months from the date of the wrongful dispossession. In the present instance, the plaintiff was dispossessed on the 24th September 1892, and it was not until upwards of a year afterwards that the Board of Revenue declared that he ought not to have been ousted from his holding. If his remedy therefore was by an application under Clause (m) and not by a suit in the Civil Court, he would in the present case have no redress. For the above reasons I am of opinion that the decision of the Lower Appellate Court was wrong. I allow this appeal, and setting aside the decree of the Lower Appellate Court, remand the case under the provisions of Section 562 of the Code of Civil Procedure with directions to the District Judge to restore the appeal to his file of pending appeals and proceed to dispose of it on the merits, as raised in the other grounds in the memorandum of appeal to his Court. The appellant will have his costs in this Court in any event.
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Title

Thakur Din vs Mannu Lal

Court

High Court Of Judicature at Allahabad

JudgmentDate
30 April, 1897
Judges
  • Aikman