The central legal point established in the judgment is the distinction between movable and immovable property, and the admissibility of oral evidence for unregistered documents creating an interest in immovable property.

Pollock, J—According to the plaintiff there was an agreement between him and the defendant in March or April 1933, by which the defendant was to collect bidi leaves in the plaintiff's jungle during the next three years and was to pay Rs. 100 per annum for these leaves in June-July of each year after collecting the leaves, and the defendant collected the leaves in 1933 and 1934 but failed to pay for them. The suit was brought on February 7, 1935, to recover Rs. 200 in accordance with the terms of this agreement. The terms of the agreement were, according to the plaintiff, reduced to writing in a document called a patta, which was neither stamped nor registered, and handed over to the defendant who was called upon to produce it. The defendant depied that there was ever such a document executed or that he had taken bidi leaves from the plaintiff's jungle. The Small Cause Court held that such a patta had been executed, and that the defendant had removed some bidi leaves from the plaintiff's jungle during the two years in suit, but that as the document created an interest in immovable property, it was inadmissible in evidence for want of registration and no oral evidence could be given of its terms. The Small Cause Court accordingly dismissed the plaintiff's suit.

2. If the document created an interest in immovable property of the value of Rs. 100 and upwards, then under Section 17 of the Registration Act such document required to be registered, and under Section 49 of that Act it cannot, in the absence of registration, affect any immovable property comprised therein or be received as evidence of any transaction affecting such property. Under Section 91 of the Evidence Act When the terms of a contract, or of a grant or of any other disposition of property, have been reduced to the form of a document...no evidence shall be given in proof of terms of such contract, grant or other disposition of property, except the document itself or secondary evidence of its contents in cases in which secondary evidence is admissible under the provisions hereinbefore contained.

3. If the original document is lost or if ''the defendant refuses to produce it after notice to do so, secondary evidence is admissible under Section 65 of the Evidence Act, and Section 91 of that Act would not appear to prohibit secondary evidence being given of the terms of a compulsorily registrable but unregistered document in such circumstances. It is, however, not necessary to decide whether the Small Cause Court was correct in saying that oral evidence was inadmissible to prove the terms of the patta.

4. The Small Cause Court has given no reasons for holding that the patta created an interest in immovable property. Immovable property is defined in Clause (6) of Section 3 of the Registration Act as including land...or any other benefit to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything which is attached to the earth, but not standing timber, growing crops nor grass

and movable property, is defined in Clause (9) as including standing timber, growing crops and grass, fruit upon and juice in trees, and property of every other description, except immovable property.

5. Neither definition professes to be exhaustive. Prima facie leaves of a tree would appear to be more akin to the fruit upon and juice in trees than to any part of the definition of immovable property. In Raja Bije Bahadur v. Ganoolal 5 C.P.L.R 6 it was held that future crops of a field did not come within the term ''growing crops'' but were included in the term ''benefit to arise out of land.'' The decision in Parmanand v. Birkhu 5 N.L.R. 21 : 1 Ind. Cas. 903 that a right to collect lac is an interest in immovable property is not really in point because lac is the produce of an insect settled on the tree and not part of the produce of the tree itself. In Janoo Mundur v. Ilucha Mundur 12 W.R. 366 : 3 B.L.R.A.C. 394 the Calcutta High (5ourt held that a lease of the righ