TMI Blog1918 (6) TMI 2X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... assigned by them a judgment and fourteen decrees of the District Judge of Nadia, dated March 28, 1907. 3. The case arises under the following circumstances: The plaintiff, who is the present appellant, is the zamindar of eight villages, and on February 25, 1902, the Government of Bengal ordered a survey to be made covering these villages and a record of rights to be prepared under Section 101 of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885. The survey was accordingly made and the record of rights was duly published, but the appellant was dissatisfied with certain of the decisions of the Revenue Officer, and on March 9,1904, instituted 290 suits for determination of the matters in dispute between himself and his tenants, and at the same time a number of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e jamai lands. He also held that the appellant had failed to prove except in one instance that the lands entered as jamai were utbandi, and he directed that in settling the rents an allowance of 10 per cent, should be made in favour of the tenants. 6. The appellant instituted an appeal in 109 of the said suits to the Court of the District Judge of Nadia; ten of the tenants also filed appeals to the same Court. Settlement took place with regard to many of the cases before the hearing, and only fifty-three of the appellant's appeals and eight of the tenants' were heard and decided by the District Judge. He delivered judgment on March 28, 1909, dismissing the tenants' appeals and deciding the plaintiffs substantially in his favo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 102 or settled under Section 105 or Section 108. 8. By the operation of this section it is plain that the right of appeal is limited by the provisions regulating the right of appeal to the High Court from a subordinate Court, and these were to be found in Section 584 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1882, the power as to the regulation of rents being dependent and consequent upon the alteration of the judgment upon the specified grounds. 9. Section 584 of the Code is in the following words: Unless when otherwise provided by this Code or by any other law, from all decrees passed in appeal by any Court subordinate to a High Court, an appeal shall lie to the High Court on any of the following grounds, namely: (a) The decision being con ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rly admitted, is necessarily a pure question of fact. 13. Their Lordships have carefully considered the judgment of the High Court with these matters present to their minds, but they are unable to find that the decision of the District Judge stood in. any shadowy borderland between fact and law. The question for determination was as to the character of certain lands, and as to what was the measurement properly applicable, and the real objection to the judgment of the District Judge was that there were underlying assumptions which vitiated his decision and that the form of his judgment showed that he had misweighed the evidence. 14. An examination of the judgment of the High Court makes this plain. The District Judge appears to have ex ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on behalf of the tenant appellants that by reason of this statement the learned judge, in his subsequent careful and critical examination of the evidence, approached the question not with an open mind, but influenced by the fact that he had already arrived at a conclusion on certain assumptions. In the course of the judgment of the High Court this contention is set forth in the following terms: It has been contended on behalf of the tenants that, in dealing with the evidence in the way in which the special judge has dealt with it, he has not given full effect to the evidence adduced on behalf of the tenants, that he has erred in the estimate which he has formed of its value, being misled by the conclusion at which he arrived on the assumpt ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n of evidence which is excluded by the limited character of the appeal. 17. It may well be that before different tribunals the witnesses summoned and the documents used would have created an opinion upon the merits of the controversy different from that which was formed by the District Judge. But upon this the High Court was not competent to enter; their functions were completely circumscribed by the provisions of the statute passed for the express purpose of securing some measure of finality in cases where the balance of evidence, verbal and documentary, arose for decision. 18. In their Lordships' opinion, therefore, the High Court have exceeded their jurisdiction, and this appeal must succeed. 19. When special leave was grant ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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