- (1.) THIS appeal arises out of a suit instituted by the plaintiffs respondents for eviction of the defendants appellants who represent a firm and its proprietors from a brick-field described in the schedule of the plaint after service of notice to quit and for recovery of damages. The suit was brought on the footing that the defendants were non-agricultural tenants. The suit was contested by the defendant firm. The contesting defendant pleaded, inter alia, that defendants Nos. 2 and 3 were not necessary parties, that the notice to quit was invalid and insufficient, that the defendants had erected pucca structures with the knowledge and consent of the plaintiffs and was not liable to be evicted and that the plaintiffs were not entitled to recover any damages.
(2.) THE trial court negatived all the contentions of the contesting defendants and decreed the suit. The defendants were allowed to remove their structures, kilns and other implements of the brick field within the time specified by the court. An appeal was preferred by the defendants which succeeded in part. The lower appellate court held that the defendants were liable to be evicted but such eviction would follow only after the plaintiffs paid reasonable compensation to the defendants according to the provisions of section 9 (1) (c) (iii) of the West Bengal Non-Agricultural Tenancy Act. In this view of the matter the lower appellate court remanded the case to the trial court for determining the amount of compensation and for passing a decree for eviction after payment by the plaintiffs landlords the amount so determined to the defendants tenants. This second appeal has been preferred by the defendants against the above judgment and decree passed by the lower appellate court.
(3.) DR. Gupta appearing on behalf of the defendants appellants urged two points for our consideration in this appeal. He contended in the first place that all the rights of the plaintiffs respondents who are admittedly intermediaries within the meaning of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953, having vested in the State Government under sub-section (6) of section 4 of the above Act, the suit for eviction and consequently the decree pending in appeal have become infructuous and the appellants who are the actual possessors and tenants of the disputed brick-field have become direct tenants under the State. His second contention was that the appellants having purchased pucca structures in the brick field from the respondents and they having also erected pucca structures themselves with the consent of the landlords are protected from eviction under section 7 (5) of the West Bengal Non-Agricultural Tenancy Act. We shall take both these points one after another.;