Lord Blanesburgh—

This is a plaintiffs' appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Port William, in Bengal reversing a decree of the Sub-ordinate Judge at Khulna and dismissing as against the respondents the appellants suit.

The respondents appearing are 9 out of an original concourse of 414 defendants who at the commencement of the litigation on 30th April 1921 were so far as was physically possible, in occupation of an area of lands approximately 6,000 bighas in extent situate in the Collectorate of District Khulna in Bengal. The appellant's claim in the suit was to recover from the impleaded defendants khas possession of these lands. Their case in substance, it will suffice to state it in the barest outline, was that the respective interests of the defendants in the lands were no more than encumbrances within the meaning of S. 11, Bengal Regulation 8 of 1819 and that the appellants as auction-purchasers of the putni in which the 6,000 bighas were comprised had right to avoid these incumbrances and recover for themselves khas possession of the entirety of the lands. Very many of the defendants submitted in the course of the proceedings to the appellants' demand for pos