The jurisdiction of the civil court is barred in cases of occupancy holding transfers contravening S. 12 of the Tenancy Act, 1920, and the landlord must seek remedy through a revenue officer under S. 13 of the Act.

Hallifax—Stripped of irrelevancies the facts with which we are concerned are only that one Man Singh, an occupancy tenant of land belonging to the plaintiff Gopi, transferred his occupancy holding by sale to the defendant Tijau on the 17th of February 1922, executing a deed as evidence of the transfer, and that Tijau is not the landlord or even one of the landlords of the holding nor a person who, if he survived Man Singh, without nearer heirs, would inherit his occupancy right, nor was he co-tenant of the holding. The landlord Gopi sued in the Court of the Subordinate Judge for the ejectment of Tijau as a trespasser and was given a decree for possession of the holding which was confirmed on appeal.

2. On these facts, which are really all the facts with which we have any concern, it seems clear enough that Man Singh transferred his right in his holding to Tijau in contravention of S. 12 of the Tenancy Act, 1920. Consequently the landlord Gopi could apply to a revenue, officer under S. 13 of the Act, and by S. 14 the revenue officer is empowered to set aside the transfer and put him in possession of the holding on certain terms. Under S. 105 of the same Act, therefore, no civil Court can entertain the present suit by Gopi to set aside the transfer or declare it void and put him in possession, and the suit ought to have been dismissed, or rather the plaint ought to have been rejected, as disclosing no cause of action triable by a civil Court.

3. To understand the decisions of the Courts below and the arguments put forward in support of them it is necessary to state a few other facts and pleadings. The defendant pleaded that; he was a fractional landlord of the holding, but it is now admitted that he comes no nearer to that than being the owner of another patti in the same village as Gopis patti in which the holding lies; that gives him no more rights in the holding than being owner of a neighbouring or even distant village would. The deed executed by Man Singh, however, untruly described Tijau as landlord of the holding and called itself a surrender, and by reason of these recitals it was admitted to registration. That was in direct contravention of S. 12 (4) of the Tenancy Act, and it has been correctly held that the document must be regarded as unregistered.

4. The learned Additional District Judge, as I understand his judgment, has held that a civil Court has jurisdiction in the case because the transfer was void for want of registration of the document by which it was made and was therefore not a transfer in contravention of the provisions of S. 12 of the Tenancy Act. In this view he purports to follow the ruling of Stanyon, A.J.C. in Ganeshdas v. Shankar,1912 8 NLR 22 and finds himself unable to follow that of the Honble the Financial Commissioner in Moolchand v. Munney It is very commonly supposed that there is a conflict between these two rulings and that the former supports the view here taken, following that set out by Ismay. J.C., in Chamru Sao v. Tulsidin Singh,1904 27 CPLR 49 and Daji Vithal v. Moreshwar,1903 1 NLR 112 in which Sir Stanley Ismay dissented from the view taken by Drake-Brockman, A.J.C. in Dayaram v. Shaligram,1903 16 CPLR 135. The fallacies in the reasoning seem to me almost too obvious to need refutation. It is, however, by no means uncommonly accepted, though it is certainly not supported by any of the judgments; mentioned.

5. The latest published ruling on the point is that of Stanyon, A.J.C. in Ganeshdas v. Shankar,1912 8 NLR 22 where by mistake or otherwise divergent judgments of single Judges have been included in the official publication of rulings of this Court, I am bound to follow the latest of them unless I feel sufficient doubt of its correctness to refer the question to a Bench, which could over-rule it. Here however, I am respectfully and entirely in agreement with the views expressed, and therefore far from being in agreement with the misinterpretation of those views which is so lame