JUDGMENT

Khundkar, J. - This appeal arises out of a suit instituted by three plaintiffs for a declaration that they had a right of easement to catch fish in the Barisal river without payment of rent or boat-fee. That river is a public tidal and navigable river, but the plaintiffs maintain that they and their predecessors had exercised the right claimed by them for a period over 100 years. The defendants in the suit were the Province of Bengal and one Akhil Ali Sikdar with whom the Government had made a settlement of the right of fishery in the disputed part of the river. The defence was that the plaintiffs had acquired no right of easement, and that the fishery rights were legally vested in defendant 2 upon whom the Government had conferred those rights by settlement.

2. The trial Court dismissed the suit, but the lower appellate Court reversed that decision upon the finding that there was no legal bar to the acquisition of a right of fishery in a public and tidal navigable river as an easement, and that the plaintiffs had acquired such a right by user over the requisite period. The learned lower appellate Court held that the evidence in the case was sufficient to establish that the