VINAYAKRAO DHUNDIRAJ BIWALKAR Vs. SECY OF STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit was instituted by the plaintiff in the District Court at Thana against the Secretary of State for India in Council for a declaration that he is the inamdar and owner of the soil and has full proprietary rights in the suit lands, and for possession and mesne profits. The District Judge dismissed the suit as to merits and for want of jurisdiction. He also thought that the suit was barred by limitation of time. The judgment of the Bombay High Court affirmed his decision as to merits and dismissed the appeal without deciding the questions of jurisdiction or limitation.

(2.) The plaintiff claims under grants made to his ancestor Vinayak in the earlier part of last century by Raghoji Angria, the Ruler of the Kolaba State, which had formed part of the territories extending from Bombay to Goa over which the notorious Kanoji Angria established his rule in 1713. For more than 40 years he and his descendants carried on a piratical war against shipping in the Indian Ocean until they were finally suppressed by Lord Clive and Admiral Watson in 1756. The northern portion of these territories forming the Kolaba State and adjoining the Bombay Presidency managed to survive as a feudatory of the Peishwa, and in 1802 Vinayak Purusram, the plaintiff's ancestor, succeeded his father as Dewan of the State and held that office until the annexation in 1840. In 1816 in reward for his services he obtained two grants, one on 25 January of the inam village of Kaproli for himself and on the following day another grant for himself and his associates. He may well have considered that it was better to have two separate grants, as if the second and larger grant were resumed at any time, the village of Kaproli might be left to him. He was doubtless aware that these grants in whatever terms they were expressed, were liable to resumption ; and in 1818 having in the meantime rendered signal services, not only to the Kolaba State, as recited in the correspondence, but also to the East India Company by preventing his State from joining the Mahratta confederacy in the war against the Company which ended in the annexation of the Peishwa's territories in 1818, he obtained the further security of a guarantee from the Company of the continuance of the grants already mentioned, as, also, of a cash allowance of Rs. 2,000 payable by the Treasury, and of payment of the State's indebtedness to him.

(3.) This undertaking of the paramount power to prevent the exercise of the power of resumption was of value especially in the event which has happened of the large areas of waste land then existing in so many villages being brought under cultivation. In this case between 1844 and 1917 owing to the industry and good management of the grantees the area under cultivation has doubled and the income trebled as may be gathered from the fact that in 1917 the area is found to contain 16 villages instead of eight as in 1840, and according to the estimate of the District Judge the income has risen to Rs. 25,000. The Ruler, however, accepted the restriction, and helped in bringing it about. The Company was willing to give these guarantees, no doubt on the advice of Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, who had been Resident at the Peishwa at the outbreak of hostilities and was in charge of the annexed territories, and knew all the circumstances. The matter having been arranged, the two letters of 4 and 11 April 1818, were exchanged between Raghoji Angria and Mr. Elphinstone, Angria's letter asked that Vinayak and his associates were to be duly protected as to the allowances, and inams granted to them and their heirs as shown in a memorandum of assignments forwarded with the letter and as to the indebtedness to Vinayak and requested the Company to satisfy Vinayak on these points. Mr. Elphinstone's reply omitting the end of the letter referring to the debts, was as follows :