Parmeshwar Prasad Singh and Others vs Narsing Rai

Ross, J.—This is an appeal by the plaintiff against the decree of the District Judge of Mijzaffarpur affirming a decision of the Munsiff of Uajipur by which ho dismissed the plaintiff''s suit for a declaration that the holding of the defendant is a bhauli holding and not a holding at a cash rent. The suit was not fried but was dismissed on the preliminary ground that it was barred by the rule of res judicata. The only question in this appeal is whether the Courts below were right in applying this rule to the facts of this case.

It appears both from the judgment of the Munsiff in the present, suit and from the judgment in the previous litigation that the Record of Rights shows that this is a bhauli holding. In rent suit No. 1508 of 1916 the plaintiff sued the defendants for bhauli rent for 1320 to 1323. The second issue in that suit is whether the land is bhauli or nakdi. A compromise decree in a suit between the lessee of the village and the defendant was produced in evidence. The Munsiff rightly stating the question to be whether the entry in the Record-of-Rights had been rebutted by this decree held that it had not. The District Judge came to the opposite decision and dismissed the suit for produce rent. The Courts below have held that that decision was conclusive in the present litigation.

The present case is on all fours with Kali Ray v. Pratap Narain [1907] Cri.L.J. 92. There the plaintiff relied on the Record-of-Rights which showed bhauli rent. The defendant relied on a previous rent decree at a cash rental. It was held that the decision in a previous rent suit as to the amount of rent payable does not operate as res judicata in a suit for the rent of the subsequent years although it may give rise to a presumption u/s 51 of the Bengal Tenancy Act, that the rents for subsequent years remained the same.

This decision answers the argument of the learned Vakil for the respondent to the effect that a decision that rent is cash rent must be res judicata because a cash rent cannot be changed into a produce rent. The rule is that while the decree finally decides the rent payable for the years in suit it is merely presumptive evidence of the rent of future years and the presumption may be rebutted. The cases referred to by the learned Vakil for the respondent, Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya Bahadur v. Umed Ali 12 C.W.N. 904 and Upendra Kumar Chakravarty v. Shamlal Mondal [1907] 34 Cal. 1020 he was no bearing on the present question. In the decision of this Court relied on by the District Judge the principal question was the question of area. I hold therefore that the decisions of the Courts below are wrong and I decree this appeal with costs and sot aside the decrees of the District Judge and the Munsiff and remand the case to the Munsiff for trial.