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1. This appeal is on behalf of defendants 2 and 7 to 10 in a suit for establishment of title and recovery of possession. The plaintiffs are 32 in number. Plaintiffs 1 to 31 claim title on the basis of a patni taluk granted to their predecessor in interest, Bibi Manjura Banoo by the 13 annas proprietors of Touzi No. 22 of the Tippera Collectorate in the year 1880. The patni kabuliat is Ex. 28, an extract from which is printed at 11-181. It included village Sovarampore, alias Jitrampore. Plaintiff 32 is the proprietor of the remaining 3 annas share of the said estate. The plaintiffs' case is that the lands in suit which are described in three schedules, A, B and C, annexed to the plaint are re-formations in situ of their village Sovarampore, on the other side, namely the eastern side, of the river Meghna, which at the time of the that and revenue survey, formed the eastern boundary of their village, but which since then has shifted its course far to the west. According to them the lands in suit began to rise above water from 10 or 12 years before the suit which was filed on 15th September 1925, and the lands of Schedules A, B and C became fit for possession at different times. In the plaint they do not state precisely when the lands of Schedule A became so fit, but in respect of the lands of Schedules B and C the statement is that they "formed and became fit for cultivation 7 or 8 years before the suit." The contesting defendants claim the lands in suit as re-formations in situ of or accretions to the Government Khas Mehal Estate Char Maricha Kandi, Touzi No. 2717 of the Tippera Collectorate. Nos. 7-10 claim under a taluka settlement from the Government, that is, they set up the claim to hold them as permanent tenure holders under the Government under Ex. 21(11-158). Defendant 2 claims that Schedules A and G and a good part of the lands of Schedule B falls within his occupancy holding held under defendants 7 to 10. The other defendants do not appear. The contesting defendants set up an alternative case (para. 38 of the written statement of defendants 7 to 10), that if the lands in suit or any portion thereof do not form a part of Government Estate Char Maricha Kandi, they were in the bed of the navigable river Meghna at the time of the that and revenue survey and they are accordingly the Crown lands of the Government. In that case they say the plaintiffs are to be defeated on the plea of jus tertii.

10. Regarding Schedule A land and what we have called B (1) and C (1) there is not much difficulty. It is admitted in the plaint that in 1900 Government took the assets of Schedule A land into consideration in arriving at the ijara rent which was to be paid to it by Jahabux, Rahim Bux and Apseruddi under the Kabuliat Ex. 21 (11-158) and that Rs. 51-1-3 represented the amount of rent payable to the Government for it (plaint para. 10). This fact is also borne out by documentary evidence, one of the documents being a document on which the plaintiffs rely in support of another part of their case (Ex. 1-A. 11-198). The fact that rent was assessed on it in 1900 would be very strong, almost conclusive evidence, to support the case that the land had become fit for possession and was being possessed by Jahabux and others from 1900. To counteract that inference the plaintiffs state in paras. 4 and 5 of their plaint that in 1900 the said lands were under shallow water and at that time the predecessors of defendants 1 to 14 in collusion with their tenants in expectation of future gain and for showing their possession of the same as part and parcel of Char Maricha Kandi caused the same to be measured and included within the said Government Khas Mehal Estate. In one of the recitals in Ex. 1-A which the Government executed in favour of the plaintiffs on 27th September 1923 a similar statement is made. This explanation of the plaintiffs appears to us to be unsubstantial and the recitals in Ex. 1-A not to be in accord with facts. It is the case of both parties that before the demarcation proceedings of 1916 neither the plaintiffs' nor the defendants' predecessors knew for certain, and in 1900 none of them had reason to believe, that Schedule A was a part of Sovarampore. It is a narrow and long strip of land only about 60 bighas in area being the extreme eastern portion of the lands in suit, bordering on the Government estate. We do not see why in this state of facts Jahabub and his cosharers would in 1900 by their own act take upon themselves the burden of paying to Government every year an additional sum of Rs. 51 odd as rent with no immediate prospect or any prospect, if the plaintiffs' case about the time of re-formation of the land be true, within a reasonable time of getting any profit out of it. The plaintiffs' statement in the plaint that these lands re-formed only between 1913 to 1915 is palpably an untrue one, seeing that in the notice which they served on the Government under Section 80, Civil P.C. in 1918, which was in respect of the whole of Schedule A and at least of a good part of Schedules B and C they stated that the re-formation was in 1909 and lands were fit for possession before January 1910 (Ex. A, 11-188). In Para. 2 of Ex. 39 (11-184) a letter from the Director of Land Records to the Collector of Tippera dated 23rd February 1916, there is a statement that these lands had formed and were in the possession of the Government, obviously through their ijaradars, the defendants predecessors, since 1897 when the survey on the basis of which Ex. 21 (11-158) was executed commenced. The lands mentioned in that para-graph refer obviously to Schedule A lands. We have no hesitation in holding that the lands of Schedule A had re-formed on the east of the river Meghna about the year 1897 and had become fit for possession and were being possessed by the defendants' predecessors at least from 1900.