My First Brief continues...


He was a rich man and belonged to a non-agricultural class by caste which could not buy land in the open market under the Alienation of Land Act which, however, was not applicable to tea estates. Raja Daya Krishna Kaul agreed to the suggestion and entrusted the brief to father. I did the devilling for father. One Basakhi, a Brahman of village Jia was persuaded to file a pre-emption suit through father. Of course Basakhi was financed by Raja Daya Krishan who trusted him. The suit was resisted on a number of grounds. Both the Petman brothers—one of whom practised at Simla, and the other was the leader of the Lahore Bar—were engaged along with half a dozen local lawyers to defend the suit. It was pleaded that tea garden land was not agricultural land and no pre-emption suit could be filed in regard to it. Another plea was that the suit was Benami—for some one else—and merited dismissal, that the machinery of—tea estate and forest was not pre-emptable. The case was first heard by Strickland, the District Judge. He tried it at several places and held several sittings. Eventually the suit was partially decreed and this decision was upheld by the Privy Council. The case made law. It decided that tea gardens are agricultural land but that neither the machinery is pre-emptable, nor is forest land.

The other case was also interesting. Inder Singh had large estates in U.P. and in Mandi state and some property in Kangra District as well. Inder Singh—once a Wazir of Mandi—was born of a wedded Rajput wife of Uttam Singh, his father, who himself had once been a Wazir of Mandi. Thakar Singh, another son, was born of a woman of some low caste from District Bharaich in U.P. It was alleged that her first husband was alive when Uttam Singh married her. After Uttam Singh’s death Thakar Singh claimed half of his father’s property.


to be continued....

( This account is maintained by Har Anand Publication)