Judgement

The questions raised in this appeal were first, one respecting boundaries, involving a claim by the Appellants to 4,975 beegahs of land as part of Mouzah Gopalpore, but resisted by the principal Respondents, as being part of and within their village of Gopeenathpore, and secondly, the practice, in a question of title relating to land, of the Mofussil Courts admitting copies of a Grant or Deed as evidence of the original.

The Respondents claimed possession of about 5,600 beegahs of jungle land, as falling within the boundaries of their village of Gopeenathpore. Of the entire area in dispute the Revenue Authorities had, by a survey Award, given possession to Government of 4,975 beegahs and 625 beegahs to the Appellants, as proprietors of Mouzah Gopalpore. The suit was brought to set that Award aside. The Judge of Bheerbhoom, Mr. O. W. Malet, was of opinion, that the Plaintiffs had failed to prove their alleged boundaries, and that they were also barred by the Act .of limitation of suits, and dismissed the suit as against both the Government and the Appellants. On appeal to a division Bench of the High Court, consisting of the Justices Steer and Levinge, that Court held, that limitation did not apply to the case, and that the Appellants had proved their boundaries to include the land in dispute, and reversed the Decree of the Court below, decreeing to the Respondents the whole area sued for both as against the Government and the Appellants.

The appeal was from this Decree. The Respondents, Gordon Stuart & Co., alone appeared as Respondents in support of the Decree of the High Court.

Mr. Leith, for the Appellants,

Argued two points—

First, on the question of fact, in respect to the boundaries, whether the 4,975 beegahs in dispute, formed part of Appellants Mouzah, Gopalpore, under which they claimed title under a Sunnud from a former Rajah of Burdwan, or of the tenants of the Mouzah Gopeenathpore, and,

Secondly, he contended that, as the suit, being founded upon an original Sunnud, dated 1195 B. E., which purported to have been made by the then Rajah of Burdwan, and the same having been challenged as spurious by the Appellants in their answer, the Respondents were bound to produce and prove the Sunnud, or give satisfactory evidence of the loss of the same, so as to entitle them to put in as evidence a copy of the Sunnud, citing on this point Syed Abbas Ali Khan v. Yadeem Ramy Reddy(3 Moores Incl. App. Cases, 156.). He further contended, that the copy of a copy of the original Sunnud, in the absence of evidence showing the loss, and that it was a true copy, could not be received as secondary evidence ; and further, that the Appellants were not parties to a former suit in which the copy had been admitted by the Court, and that the judgment in that case did not operate as res judicata.

Sir R. Palmer, Q.C., and Mr. Doyne, for the Respondents, were not called on.

Their Lordships judgment was delivered by

The Right Hon. Sir James Colvile—The property in question in this suit is a large tract of jungle land lying to the north of the Great Trunk Road in Zillah Bheerbhoom. There have been several Claimants to portions of this land, besides the present Appellants and the Respondents, and some of them were originally parties to this suit. Therefore, in order to see how the Appellants and Respondents stand to each other, it may be desirable shortly to consider the proceedings which led to the suit.

There was a dispute as early as the year 1828 between the Chatterjees family, whose title is now vested in the principal Respondents, the Bengal Coal Company, and one Ram Narain Mitter, through whom the Appellants derive their title, concerning the right to this land, but at that time the dispute appears to have been limited to some 1,600 beegahs of land. The Government authorities attached this land, and their possession seems afterwards to have extended itself, in some way or another, to the whole of that which was claimed in this suit,