Wallis, J.

1. I agree with Munro J. that the extent of the defendants holding under the plaintiff is res judicata by reason of the decision in O.S. No. 430 of 1906. In that case the present plaintiff, who held a five years lease of the village from the registered landholder, sued the present defendant to recover rent for faslies 1314 and 1315 in the shape of Rajabagam, or landholders share of the produce, of certain jeroyati lands in the village in the occupation of the defendant. To enable the plaintiff to succeed it was necessary for him to show under Section 7 of the Rent Recovery Act 1865 that he had tendered a proper patta to the defendant for each fasli, or that it had been agreed to dispense with the tender. under Section 4 the patta had to contain the local description and extent of the land. The plaintiff pleaded that he had tendered a proper pattah for each fasli. The defendant denied the tenders and pleaded further that the pattas alleged to have been tendered were not proper instancing certain payments claimed. He pleaded further that " the extent of the defendants jeroyati land (that is, of the land in respect of which the plaintiff claimed rent) has been very much overrated." I think that must be taken as referring to the extent in the patta as well as to the extent in the plaint, which would merely reproduce it; and I think the District Munsif who tried the case so understood it, as in his careful summary of the written statement he makes no express mention of the plea as to the extent of the land and evidently treats it as part of the plea that the pattas tendered were improper; and I think it was also covered by the issue "whether the pattas so tendered are proper" and by the terms of the judgment on that issue, which is as follows; " The terms of the pattas Exhibit F do not contain any objectionable matter." If this view of the pleadings is correct, there is an end of the case, because the question of the extent of the defendants jeroyati holding was directly and substantially in issue in the previous suit and must be taken to have been heard and finally decided in the plaintiffs favour, as such a decision is necessarily involved in the decree passed in the plaintiffs favour, seeing that, if the decision had been the other way, it would under the Rent Recovery Act have been fatal to his suit which must have been dismissed on the ground that the patta was not a proper one.

2. In his judgment Sankaran Nair J. observes that a decree for rent does not necessarily involve the decision that a proper pattah has been tendered, as the parties may dispense with them; but where as here tender of a proper patta is alleged on the one side and denied on the other and there is no suggestion that tender has been dispensed with, it seems to me that the decree for rent does involve the decision that a proper patta has been tendered.

3. Apart from any question as to the terms of the patta, it seems to me that the extent of the defendants holding of jeroyati land in the village was a matter directly and substantially in issue in the suit, as it was in respect of this extent that plaintiff was claiming Rajabagam, or landholders share of the produce, from the defendant; and that it was necessary for him to prove this extent to enable a decree to be given in his favour, even if there had been no plea in the written statement, as there was, that the extent had been overestimated. In these circumstances I think the decision on the 6th issue that the plaintiff was entitled to the Rajabagam claimed in the plaint necessarily involved a decision that the extent of the defendants jeroyati land in the village was as alleged in the plaint, because what he claimed was the Rajabagam of this extent and that this point must be taken to have been decided in the plaintiffs favour.

4. In either view the question of the extent of the defendants holding of jeroyati land in the village having been directly and substantially in issue and having be