KRISTADHAN GHOSE Vs. GOLAM MANDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an instance of the various subterfuges that have been devised to evade the salutary provisions of the Bengal Tenancy Act.

(2.) Two occupancy holdings were amalgamated in 1301 B. S., without any registered document, the lands remaining the same but the consolidated jama being an enhancement of more than 2 annas in the rupee on the old jama. The lower Courts have given a decree on the old state of things.

(3.) It is contended before us that there ought to have been a finding as to whether the landlord and the tenant intended by this amalgamation to create a new tenancy. This was never the case of the appellant in the Courts below. In the first Court, his case was that the tenant was a non-occupancy-raiyat and that, therefore, he was liable to pay at the rate at which he had been paying for more than three years and that failing; his contention was that he was entitled to realise rent at the enhanced rate under proviso (1) to Section 29.