Law: Bengal Village Chaukidari Act (VI of 1870)

Section: 50,51

(a) Deed---   Construction of contract or grant-Whether evidence admissible.   No evidence is admissible on a question of construction of a contract or grant, which must be based solely on the terms of the document; where there is no dispute as to how the contents of the document are related to existing facts.   Balkishen Das v. Legge 27 I A 58 and Maung Kyin v. Ma Shwe La A I R 1917 P C 207 rel.   (b) Bengal Village Chaukidari Act (VI of 1870),   Ss. 51 & 50 --Chaukidari Chakran lands in Patni-Rights and obligations of Zamindar and Patnidar under section 51-Relationship of new grant to original Patni grant.   A grant of the Chaukidari Chakran lands by the Zamindar to the Patnidar serves, in fact, two purposes. It recognises that the grantee is entitled to hold those lands by virtue of his title as Patnidar of the village of which they form part, and it fixes the amount payable by him on account of assessment and share of profits. When section 51 of the Bengal Village Chaukidari Act, 1870 recognises and saves rights which had been acquired under contract with the Zamindar, its reasonable implication is that the rights so recognised are the same as under the contract, and that, in consequence, the settlement of the Chaukidari Chakran lands in Patni must be taken to be a continuance of the Patni of the village in which they are included. But it is open to the parties to agree that the Chaukidari Chakran lands should form a new and distinct Patni, and the result of such an agreement will be that while the grantee will hold those lands in Patni right, that is to say, the tenure will be permanent, heritable and alienable so far as his liability to pyjama and the corresponding right of the Zamindar to sell it under the Regulation if there is any default in the payment thereof are concerned, the new grant will be an entity by itself independent of the original Patni. The law had long been settled that a sale of a portion of a Patni is bad, but that if by agreement of all the parties interested different portions thereof are held under different sanads, which provide for sale of those portions for default in payment of kist payable…