JUDGMENT

Caspersz, J. - The subject of this litigation is a mehal, or certain landed property, called mehal noabad taraf Joy Narain Ghosal situated in. the district of Chittagong. Noabad, means, literally, newly cultivated land; but, in the district of Chittagong, it has acquired a peculiar significance; for there it means all lands not measured in the original measurement of 1126 Maghi corresponding with 1764 A.D. So, also, the word "taraf" which implies a permanently settled estate with reference to the Permanent Settlement of Lord Cornwallis means, in Chittagong, an estate measured, in 1126 Maghi (1764 A.D.) and afterwards permanently settled under the Regulations of 1793. Joy Narain Ghosal, the name appearing in the expression noabad taraf Joy Narain Ghosal, was the original owner of the property in the Eighteenth Century. The history of this mehal may be gathered from Vol. II, pp. 156 to 162 of the Reports of Select Cases determined in the Sudder Dewany Adawlut-the judgment of that Court, bearing date the 30th August 1815, having been passed in a suit against Government instituted by certain members of the family of the said Joy Narain Ghosal,-and our attention has been called to Mr. H.J.S. Cotton's memorandum of the Revenue History of Chittagong (1880) and to a volume of correspondence on the settlement of the noabad lands published by the Bengal Government in the year 1889. We have, also, referred to a decision of this Court in the case of Prosunno Coomer Boy v. The Secretary of State for India in Council ILR 26 Cal. 792 (1899), which, though it deals with the resettlement of a certain taluk or tenure, in thana Ramoo not forming part of the property now in suit, and cannot in any way conclude the determination of the questions arising in the present appeals, does afford some assistance in dealing with the revenue peculiarities of the district.

2. The district of Chittagong was ceded to the East India Company under the 5th Article of the treaty concluded with Meer Cassim on the 22nd September 1760: a Council was constituted for the administration thereof with Mr. Harry Verelst as its chief; and Gokul Chandra Ghosal, uncle of Jay Narain Ghosal, was the Dewan of the first Chief of Chittagong. On the 12th May 1761, the Chittagong Council resolved, and issued a proclamation to the effect that, in order to reclaim the vast quantity of wast a lands in the district, special terms would be granted to whatever person would undertake the clearing of such lands. On the 19th September 1763, as it appears from the proceedings of the same Council, Joy Narain Ghosal attended and informed the Council that he had undertaken the clearing and cultivation of lands in many different places agreeably to the several different sanads granted to him for that purpose and the Council "agreed that, as an encouragement to his industry all such lands as have been cleared by the aforesaid Joy Narain Ghosal be made a zamindari, and be, in future, designated the noabad lands, forming part of the zamindari of Joynuggur, ordered also, that a sanad be given to him for the same." We should here mention that at the time in question Joy Narain Ghosal was also the proprietor of certain tarafs, the revenue of his tarafs having been permanently fixed from the time of the Moghul Government. It so happened that the family of Gokul Chandra Ghosal claimed the whole of the waste lands in the district of Chittagong as part and parcel of the Joynuggur zamindari to which we have just referred, and the origin of their claim was a sanad purporting to have been granted by Mr. Verelst, in May 1760, to the said Joy Narain Ghosal, nephew of his Dewan. The newly cultivated lands were periodically measured and the jama or rental payable in respect of such lands continued to increase though the revenue of the torafs remained constant, and, in the year 1791, Joy Narain Ghosal executed one kistibundi for all his lands, whether tarafs or noabad. Such was the position of affairs when