The central legal point established in the judgment is that the rights of raiyats in a zamindari village are different from those of tenants from year to year, and the burden of proof to eject a raiyat lies with the zamindar.

1. In this case the plaintiff, the holder of a permanently-settled estate, seeks, among other things, to eject the defendant from certain lands. Admittedly, the lands are situated within the plaintiffs estate and are subject to an annual assessment payable by the defendant to the plaintiff.

2. The decision of the case depends solely upon these facts, no other facts having been satisfactorily established by the evidence.

3. In this state of the case the lower Appellate Court dismissed the suit in so far as the prayer for possession was concerned. On behalf of the plaintiff it was contended that the dismissal was erroneous, and that the error was caused by the lower Appellate Court having wrongly thrown the on us of proof on the plaintiff. The argument in support of the contention was that upon the admitted facts, the finding must be that the defendant was a tenant from year to year and as due notice to quit had been given, the tenancy had been determined before the date of the action and the defendant ought to have been ejected.

4. Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act, to which reference was made on behalf of the plaintiff, does not apply to the case. If, however, there were a similarity between the relation of landlord and tenant in England and that subsisting here between the plaintiff and the defendant, the English rule embodied in that Section, that a general occupation is an occupation from year to year would go far to support the contention for the plaintiff. But there is a very material difference between the relation of landlord and tenant in England and that of a zamindar and a ryot or cultivating proprietor, or, to speak more accurately, the person in whom, with reference to Government or its assignees, the right to occupy the soil for purposes of cultivation is to be taken as vested.

5. Now a tenant, of course, derives his right from the landlord and in the case of a person thus acquiring his title, the rule referred to is unquestionably a most equitable rule. For the theory as to the relation of landlord and tenant in England led to the view that, in the absence of proof to the contrary, every tenancy was to be taken to be a tenancy at will. In fact, such was the rule until the Judges altered it and laid down that general tenancies should be presumed to be, not tenancies at will, but tenancies from year to year; as was explained in Doe v. Porter 3 T.R. 13 where Lord KENYON pointed out that a tenancy from year to year succeeded to the old tenancy at will, which was attended with many inconveniences, and, in order to obviate thorn, the Courts very early raised an implied contract for a year and added that a tenant could not be removed at the end of the year unless he had received six months previous notice, see Doe. d. Martin v. Watts 7 T.R.

83. But sound and reasonable as this rule would be, if applied to cases in which the right of a defendant in possession is derived in a manner similar to that of a tenant in England, it cannot, on principle, be extended to cases in which the defendants right is not so derived. Now, there is absolutely no ground for laying down that the rights of ryots in zemindaries invariably or even generally had their origin in express or implied grants made by the zamindar. The view that, in the large majority of instances, it originated otherwise is the one most m accord with the history of agricultural land-holding in this country. For, in the first place, sovereigns, ancient or modern, did not here set up more than a right to a share of the produce raised by raiyats in lands cultivated by them, however much that share varied at different times. And, in the language of the Board of Eevenue which long after the Permanent Settlement Eegulations wore passed, investigated and reported upon the nature of the rights of ryots in the various parts of the Presidency, " whether rendered in service, in money or in kind and whether paid to rajas jagirdars, zemindars, poligars, mutadars, shrotr