JUDGMENT

Seton-Karr, J. - The Regulations and laws most quoted in this discussion, the tenor and scope of which it becomes necessary to discuss and examine very closely, are Regulation XIX of 1793, Regulation II of 1819, Regulation IX of 1825, and Act X of 1859. The first law, Regulation XIX of 1793, is a law passed for trying the validity of the titles of persons holding, or claiming to hold, lands exempted from the payment of revenue to Government; and the first section lays down clearly what is the ancient and common law of the country on this important matter. It then divides the grants alienating public revenue into three classes: (1) grants previous to the Dewanny, or to the 12th of August 1765; (2) grants between this date and the 1st of December 1790; (3) grants made after 1790.

2. With the first class of these grants, the present discussions have nothing whatever to do, and only incidentally does the discussion touch on the second class. Between the two first classes and the third class, the law draws a marked distinction. By section 6 of the law, the revenue assessable on grants of the second period, when not more than 100 bighas in extent, is declared to belong not to Government, but to the person responsible for the discharge of the revenue of the talook or estate within which the grant is situated; and the proprietor is declared on this account not to be subject to any extra payment of revenue. It has been shown to us incidentally that, in the old rules of 1789, the word "rupees" was used instead of the word " bighas;" and it is natural to infer that the subsequent designation of bighas, as marking the extent of the land, was used, because each biga might be held, roundly, to be liable to one rupee of revenue.

3. By the next section, it is clearly laid down that the revenue on grants of more than 100 bighas in extent, alienated before 1790, should belong not to the zamindar or talookdar, but to Government; and that these lands should constitute independent talooks after resumption.

4. Section 10 of this law (Regulation XIX of 1793) is the remarkable section out of which the present contention has mainly sprung. It rules that all grants made after 1790, December 1st, whether under or above 100 bighas in extent, made by any other authority than that of the Governor-General, are absolutely null and void; that all proprietors of whatever sorts, are "authorized and required" to collect the rents from such lands at the pergunna rates, and to dispossess the grantee from the same, without making any application to a Court of Judicature or to Government; and it declares that no such proprietor shall be liable to any increase of assessment on account of any such grant which he may resume and annul.

5. The distinction which the Legislature intended to draw in this section is, I think, sufficiently obvious. The permanent settlement had been made with the zamindars, and their status, as proprietors, had been recognized. Any grants made by any other authority than the Governor-General were, in such estates, ipso facto, null and void. In the term "grants," must, also, I think, in all fairness, be included any usurpation or encroachments made by any subordinate holder of land, under the pretext that they were grants; and it was by considering the status of zamindars and proprietors, which had been so recognized by law, that such persons were not only permitted but required to look after their estates; that they were considered bound to see that the area on which rent was due, and from which revenue was eventually payable, should not be impaired or diminished; and that they were permitted, without any formality or any application to the authorities of any sort, then and there, even by force if necessary, to dispossess all fraudulent or illegal grantees, and to re-annex the usurped property to its parent estate. The zamindars, in this view, were only enjoying their own again. They had as much right to re-annex a tenure, impudently or fr