JUDGMENT

1. These are five Letters Patent appeals by various Mahomedan Julahas, defendants, residing in the village of Sheopur alias Saidraja in the district of Benares against the judgment of a learned single Judge of this Court in favour of the claim of the plaintiff zamindars of that village to enforce against the defendants certain payments alleged to be customary. The plaint sets forth that from of old it has been a custom in the said village that zamindari dues at Marwana, Holi, Dasehra, etc. have all along been paid by the inhabitants of particular castes on whom the dues were imposed according to their means; and that for example the defendant Jangi is liable to pay to the zamindars Re. 1 at Holi and one-fourth of a seer of supari nuts of the value of four annas at Dasehra. and other dues on marriages. The suit was brought to enforce the dues at Holi and Dasehra. The written statement pleaded that there was no such custom in the village in question and that the claim of the plaintiffs was not a legal claim which the plaintiffs could enforce. Both parties gave evidence, and the defendants alleged that they had not made any payment to the zamindars, and they stated that in the