The decision of a Revenue Court on an incidental question as to occupancy rights, not falling within its exclusive jurisdiction, is not binding on the Civil Court under Section 189(3) of the Estates Land Act.

Sadasiva Ayyar, J.

1. The third plaintiff is the appellant, he being the Zamindar of Nuzvid. The defendants in these suits claimed to hold what are called Banjar lands as part of their respective jirayati holdings. The plaintiffs case is that these banjar lands are not parts of these defendants jirayati holdings, but had been in their occupation on temporary grazing leases, and that on the date of the suits the defendants were in possession as mere trespassers. The suits were brought, on the strength of Section 163 of the Estates Land Act (I of 1908), in the Civil Court.

2. Both the lower Courts found as a matter of fact that these banjar lands were jirayati lands, that they were treated by the Zamindar from time immemorial as parts of the respective holdings of the defendants which contained other lands admitted to be jirayati, and that the defendants were not trespassers, But the plaintiff argued, that by reason of the decisions in certain prior suits brought by the plaintiff (or rather the person who then represented the interests of the plaintiff) for the enforcements of pattas for the former fasli, the question whether the defendants were entitled to hold these particular lands as ryots must be decided against them as res judicata. For this contention the language of Section 189, Clause (3) of the Estates Land Act is relied on.

3. It is admitted that the matter is not res judicata if Section 11 of the Civil Procedure Code, or if the principle embodied in Section 11, can alone be relied upon in argument, because the present suits in ejectment are not cognizable by the Revenue Court which tried the former suits. Hence, the appellant was constrained to rely in support of his argument upon what he contended was the true meaning of Section 189(3) of the Estates Land Act.

4. Now, where Revenue Courts and Civil Courts are thus exercising jurisdiction in disputes between the same parties (one kind of Court in certain matters and the other kind in some other matters), it is desirable that the legislature clearly set out in detail the particular matters over which each set of Courts is intended to have jurisdiction, and also provide clearly and definitely what has to be done when conflicts arise between the opinions of the two sets of Courts on the same question, when they are dealing with the separate matters within their respective jurisdictions. I shall just quote a few passages from Sheo Narain Rai v. Parmeshar Rai (1896) I.L.R., 18 All., 270 (F.B.) (such conflicts having apparently arisen in the United Provinces frequently) As it is not conceivable that the legislature could have intended that there should be of its own creation two sets of Courts in these provinces, each having jurisdiction to determine the same questions of title to land let to agricultural tenants and neither having any power to compel the other to accept its decision by revision or other procedure or by process, we must assume that in all cases in which it is clear that for the purposes of adjudicating upon an application or making a decree in the suit it was the intention of legislature that the decision on the question of title of the Court which was given the exclusive jurisdiction to entertain the application or the suit should, subject to such rights of appeal as was allowed by the Statute, be final between the parties unless the contrary intention was expressed.

5. Then in another part of the judgment (at page 280) the learned Judges say It may be inferred from a long series of decisions... that the opinion was entertained by all the Judges who in these provinces or in the Lower Provinces of Bengal have considered the question, that questions of proprietary title to land and of title to tenancies between rival claimants but not questions as to the status of a tenant of agricultural land, are questions which should be determined by the Civil Courts and not by the Court of Revenue in the more or less summary proceedings of the latter Courts.

6. Then