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1. These four companion appeals have been filed by the Secretary of State for India in Council, who was the principal defendant in each suit, and the original plaintiff is the principal respondent in each appeal. The plaintiff is the khot or lessee to whose ancestor the village of Mahul, situated in Trombay in the island of Salsette, forming part of the district of Thana, had been granted by the British Government, part in inam and the remainder in permanent khoti, i. e., lease subject to certain conditions stated in a sanad or a kowl dated April 20, 1831. It is this document which is the most important one in all the appeals, the decision of which mainly turns on the construction of its terms. Of these four appeals, First Appeals Nos. 137 and 139 of 1927 arise from two suits filed in 1922 by the plaintiff for a declaration that he was entitled to take royalty in respect of removal of earth, stone, murum and cutting of teak trees in certain lands of the village in virtue of his aforesaid sanad, and for an order on the defendants to pay the amount of royalty found due on account. Defendant No. 1 in each of the two suits is the occupant of the land, defendant No. 2 is the Port Trust of Bombay to whom the materials are sold, and defendant No. 3 is the Secretary of State for India in Council representing the Government which has denied the plaintiff's right to claim the royalty. First Appeal No. 138 of 1927 arises from a suit filed in 1923 by the same plaintiff for a declaration that the levy of non-agricultural assessment by the Government on certain buildings erected by the plaintiff on his land in the said village was illegal and for a refund of the same. Lastly, First Appeal No. 104 of 1925 arises in a suit by the said plaintiff in 1922 to recover possession from the Government of a part of the lands forming the foreshore of the said village which is surrounded on three sides by the sea and for the alternative relief of compensation. In all these suits the plaintiff having succeeded in the lower Court, the appeals have been preferred on behalf of the Government.

5. As I have stated above, the decision in all these appeals turns on the construction of the kowl, and it is on this point that arguments of counsel on both sides have been mostly directed. We will, therefore, at once turn to this question : What is the nature and purpose of this grant and what are the rights and liabilities created thereunder?

6. In answering this question, it is necessary to have a look at the nature of the revenue system prevailing at the date of the grant. The island of Salsette came under the British rule in 1774 from the Peshvas who had only about forty years back wrested it from the Portuguese. As a result of an enquiry into the introduction of a regular system of revenue administration into the island, the Bombay Government suggested certain modifications in the then prevailing system, and on approval of the same by the Court of Directors of the East India Company in 1799, Bombay Regulation I of 1808 was passed which is both a history as well as an enactment pertaining to the revenues derived from various groups of villages in the island. It appears that the Portuguese Government used to give the revenues of the village on a farm or lease to the highest bidder, but the actual occupant of the land had no permanent rights in these holdings. The revenues were derived from land as well as other sources including stones, excavated earth, capitation tax on fishermen, Mot-hurfa, i. e., tax on professions, etc. (Articles 6, 11 and 15). The British Government modified this system by giving to the old occupants of the land certain hereditary rights in their lands so long as they paid the fixed assessment measured in most cases in kind, and the farming system was also modified by giving grants of villages to various persons either for a limited term or in perpetuity under which, in consideration of paying a fixed lump sum to the Government, the grantee enjoyed all the rights of revenue, agricultural as well as non-agricultural, which the Government had, except those that were expressly excluded under the grant and one of the general exceptions was the Abkari revenue. That the Government had such non-agricultural sources of revenue seems to be clear from Arts. 50 and 60 of the said Regulation which mention Mot-hurfa tax as, well as taxes on stone quarries, cutting of wood, capitation tax, etc. If the grant was a rent-free grant in perpetuity with the right of transfer, it was known as inam; if it was a grant either for a fixed term or in perpetuity with the condition to pay a fixed amount as rent to the Government, it was called khoti or a lease and the lease-holder was called a khot. The term " khot" was a general expression used to connote a farmer of revenue and is to be distinguished from the term " khot" as used in reference to persons holding a special tenure known as khoti tenure in the Ratnagiri district governed by their own usage and for which a special Act was passed in 1880 known as the Khoti Settlement Act. The purpose of such grants was to encourage the cultivation and general development of these villages through the lease-holders whose interest it was to derive more revenue by means of extensive cultivation and increasing the population of the villages so as to leave them as much profit as possible after paying the fixed amount which they had to pay to the Government. This was the system in force when the grant in question was made in 1831, and it appears that such grants were made in the first half of the nineteenth century in respect of a large number of villages in Salsette with more or less variation of terms.

17th.The said village is granted to you, your heirs and descendants in permanent Khoti (tenure) agreeably to (the conditions laid down in) the clauses of the lease, and you may on completion of a period of 10 years from the date of this lease transfer this Khoti by sale or otherwise, provided that the vahiwat of the said village shall remain in the hands of one individual and that the Government will consider this property to be of the eldest member of the family irrespective of Takshim (shares) that there may be therein and you are prohibited from transferring the village to the person to whom it is to be transferred as stated above according to law unless proof of his respectability and means has been given to the satisfaction of Government. If you transfer this village to any person without Government Order, Government will be at liberty to cancel this lease and to take back the village into Government.

34. The common bond is the grant or kowl as it is called, of the village of Mahul on the island of Trombay in Bombay Harbour, by the Government of Bombay to the respondents' ancestor in 1831.

35. Ordinarily, the grant of a village in inam may be one of several kinds, and there is also a form of alienated village called khoti to be found in the Kolaba and Ratnagiri districts. This form is based on custom, and in the case of Ratnagiri is governed by a special Act. The khots historically are farmers of the revenue, holding under a leaseMahul, with which we are now concerned, is also called a khoti village, but: the word 'khot' is not used in the Ratnagiri sensebut in that of a grantee of certain rights which had belonged to Government. It is probable that in 1831 the distinctions now prevailing between different kinds of inams and khoti tenures were either undeveloped, or misunderstood by Government, and we must, therefore, construe the grant as it stands, deriving such help as we can from the decided cases of analogous grants in Salsette, and from the actual circumstances of this village.