PANNA LAL Vs. ROSHAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There is no force in the appeal. The plaintiffs sued for arrears of rent due in respect of a holding in the cultivatory possession of the defendants. The defendants were the original zemindars. They mortgaged their zemindari share with possession with one Puranmal in 1894, but they did not give him actual possession over the area under their cultivation. On the other hand it is admitted that they retained possession of it and paid rent to Puranmal for the same. Subsequently in a suit filed by Puranmal for the recovery of arrears of rent against them there was a compromise between Puranmal and the present defendants, and the claim of Puranmal was decreed for arrears of rent at a certain rate in 1913.

(2.) Later on the present plaintiff purchased the proprietary interest of the defendants at an auction sale, and brought a suit for the redemption of the usufructuary mortgage of 1894 and obtained a decree on the 26 July 1920, by which he was directed to pay not only the amount of the mortgage-money but also the arrears of rent due to the mortgagees from the tenant. He, therefore, acquired a right, to sue the defendants for the arrears which they were liable to pay the original mortgagees.

(3.) It is contended on behalf of the defendants that by virtue of the auction sale the defendants acquired ex-proprietary rights, and that no rent can be claimed from them until it has been fixed by the Collector under Section 36 of the U.P. Land Revenue Act, but the rent payable by the defendants to the original mortgagees was practically fixed by the compromise decree of 1913,and as the arrears claimed are for the period during which the mortgage was subsisting the plaintiff is entitled to recover those arrears at the rate fixed by the compromise as the successor-in-interest of the mortgagees. The appeal, therefore, fails and should be dismissed with costs including fees in this Court on the higher scale. Ashworth, J.