PANDURANG SHEORAM Vs. SAMBHAJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff-appellant, Pandurang Sheoram, sued the three defendants-respondents, Sambhaji Irbhan and Mt. Bhagubai, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, 2nd Class, Pusad, for ejectment of the defendants from survey Nos. 8 and 89 of mouza Kharus. His case was that these fields had stood in the name of Ramrao, son of Balaji, in the revenue records before 1875. In that year, with Ramrao's consent, the fields were conferred as a service inam in the name of the deity, Ainath Maharaj. Before that, the defendants' ancestors and, after that, the defendants had been cultivating the lands and paying assessment. The plaintiff, as the manager of the temple, sent notices to the defendants to quit the lands and, as they refused to do so, the present suit was brought.

(2.) THE plaintiff's further allegation was that Punjaji, the ancestor of the defendants, was only a tenant of Ramrao, who, even after the inam was conferred, continued to let the lands out to the defendants, who, however, paid rent direct to the plaintiff. In 1914 Raoji, the son of Ramrao, began to assert his ownership of the fields, whereupon the plaintiff ignored him and let the lands orally to defendants direct.

(3.) THE Subordinate Judge, after finding that notice of ejectment had duly been served on the defendants, came to the conclusion that before the grant of the inam in 1875, the defendants' forefathers and, after them, the defendants, had been cultivating the lands. He discovered certain evidence that defendants' forefather Punjaji held a lease of the lands of five years and, therefore, held that the memory of the defendants' tenancy could not be said to be lost in antiquity. Ramrao, he held, had been the owner of the land and it was he who agreed to give them to the temple. Even thereafter however, be continued to hold the lands from the temple, and the defendants thus became automatically his sub-tenants. Holding that the defendants were, in those circumstances, only annual tenants, the Subordinate Judge granted a decree in favour of the plaintiff.