Edward Chamier, C.J.These six appeals arise out of three suits brought by the respondents for possession of nine plots of land in villages Karharia, Bhooria, Mohiama and Salondha appertaining to Touzi No. 96, Pargana and District Bhagalpur. The respondents had in this zemindari a small share which passed at an execution sale in 1902 to one Srimati Jai Mangalbatti Misrain, who died since these suits were instituted and is represented before us by the appellant. For the sake of convenience I will treat the purchaser as the appellant and refer to her as such. It was found by the Court of First Appeal that the respondents were prior to the sale in possession of the nine plots in question in these appeals as raiyats and that they remained in possession of the plots till 1907, when they were dispossessed by the appellant. It appears that in settlement proceedings in 1906 the appellant claimed the nine plots as her kamat lands. The Settlement Authorities rejected her claim, but wrongly, as it has now been found, recorded the plots as bakasht malik. The appellant dispossessed the respondents of the plots in Salondha and Karharia in August and September 1907 and of the plots in Bhooria and Mahiama in October and November 1907. The present suits were instituted on November 15th, 1909, on the re-opening of the Courts after the annual vacation of one month. The Court of First Appeal allowed the claims to the plots in Bhooria and Mahiama but dismissed the claims to the plots in Salondha and Karharia on the ground that they were barred by limitation under Article 3, Schedule III, to the Bengal Tenancy Act. Both sides appealed and a learned Judge of this Court held that both sets of claims were within time. Hence these six appeals by the defendant or rather by her representative.

2. It was conceded before us that Appeals Nos. 55, 57, and 58 must be dismissed on the finding of the Court of First Appeal that the suits were brought within two years of the date on which the respondents were dispossessed of the plots in Bhooria and Mahiama.

3. The question for decision in the remaining three appeals, which relate to the plots in Karharia and Salondha, is whether the suits are governed by Article 3, Schedule III, to the Bengal Tenancy Act. That Article provides that the period of limitation for a suit "to recover possession of land claimed by the plaintiff as a raiyat or an under-raiyat" shall be two years from "the date of dispossession." It has been held in a large number of cases that Article 3 applies only to a suit by a raiyat or under-raiyat against his landlord, including one or more of several landlords. I accept that construction if the Article. So far it would appear that these suits are governed by this Article. But it is contended on behalf of the appellant that the Article applies only where the raiyat has been dispossessed by his landlord acting as such. In fact the argument went to this length that the Article applies only when the landlord says either expressly or impliedly to the raiyat, "I am your landlord, you are my tenant. You must vacate the land", and then turns the raiyat out wrongfully. If this contention is correct, Article 3 does not apply to the present cases for, although on the findings the appellant was one of the land-lords of the respondents, she did not claim the plots in question as the landlord of any one and certainly did not admit that the respondents were or ever had been her tenants in respect of the plots. She claimed that the plots were her kamat land by reason of the fact that she had purchased the share to which according to her they were appurtenant or attached. I am not prepared to place such a narrow construction on Article 3. It appears to me that if it is shown that the plaintiff raiyat is in fact a tenant of the defendant who dispossessed him, in respect of the land claimed in the suit, then Article 3 applies to the suit. The object of that Article seems to be to provide a short period of limitation for a suit by a raiyat to recover a holding from which he has been dispossessed by his landlord. The reason or excuse, good, bad or indifferent given or supposed to have been given by the landlord for dispossessing his tenant appears to have no learing on the enactment and much confusion must ensue if the applicability of the enactment is made to depend upon such considerations.

4. It has been held in, several cases in the Calcutta High Court that where a landlord buys a raiyats holding and as purchaser of the raiyati interest dispossesses that or another raiyat, Article 3 does not apply to a suit by the dispossessed raiyat to recover his holding [see Kamal Dhari Thakur v. Rameshwar Singh 19 Ind. Cas. 545 : 17 C.W.N. 817 and cases there cited] and some of the language used in the judgments in those cases supports the contention of the respondents in the cases now before us. But the actual decisions in those cases do not cover the present cases and I am not prepared to extend those decisions to the present cases.

5. In my opinion Article 3 applies to the cases now before us. I would allow Letters Patent Appeals Nos. 53, 54 and 56 and dismiss with costs of both hearings in this Court Second Appeals Nos. 1400, 2671 and 2672 of 1912. Letters Patent appeals Nos. 55, 57 and 58 should be dismissed with costs.

Mullick, J.

6. I entirely concur with the judgment that has just been delivered. The period of one year allowed u/s 30 of Act X of 1859 was extended by Act VIII (B.C.) of 1869 to two years and up to 1885 the law was understood to be that for actions in the nature of possessory suits between parties who are admitted to be landlord and tenant the period of limitation was two years, but that when the title of one party or the other was denied then the period was 12 years under the general law. Act VIII of 1885, however, effected a change and upon the analogy of the Central Provinces Rent Code enacted that an occupancy raiyat claiming to recover possession against his landlord must bring his suit within two years of the dispossession. It was held that this applied not only to possessory suits but also to suits where the title of the parties was challenged see Saraswati Dasi v. Horitarun Chuckerbutti 16 C. 741 : 8 Ind. Dec 490 and Ramdhan Bhadra v. Ramkumar Dey 17 C. 926 : 8 Ind. Dec. 1162. The law was further amended in 1907 by bringing within the rule raiyats of all descriptions and under-riyats, so that the law as I now understand it to be is that whether the plaintiff admits the defendant to be his landlord or not or the defendant admits that the plaintiff is his raiyat or not, if in fact the relationship of landlord and tenant is found to exist, then Schedule III of the Bengal Tenancy Act will apply. With regard to that class of cases which have sought to exclude from the operation of Schedule III ouster by a landlord acting under the authority of a Civil Court decree and in the capacity of an auction-purchaser, the principle on which they may be distinguished is that the facts in each of those cases show that the tenancy was at an end and that there was no relationship of landlord and tenant at the time of the ouster.

7. In my opinion all the cases on which the learned Counsel for the respondents has relied are susceptible of this distinction for instance in Abhoy Churn Mookerjee v. Shaik Titu 2 c.w.N. 175 the defendants were co-sharer landlords who had in execution of a rent decree purchased the jotes of the plaintiffs; in Broje Kishore Mahapatra v. Saraswati Dassi 6 C.W.N. 333 the landlords had purchased the interest of the tenant plaintiff in execution either of a rent or a simple money decree, in Mahomed Khalil v. Hirendra Nath Bhattacharya 5 C.L.J. 650 the landlord was a purchaser in execution of a rent decree against the recorded tenant; and finally in Kamal Dhari Thakur v. Rameshwer Singh 19 Ind. Cas. 545 : 17 C.W.N. 817 the landlord defendant No. 1 had purchased in execution of a decree for rent and settled the holding with respondent No. 2.

8. In these cases the Court was possibly of opinion that the tenancy being at an end by the operation of a decree and delivery of possession the plaintiffs would not have been suing as raiyats.

9. But in the cases before us the facts show that notwithstanding the denial of the landlords the tenancy did exist at the time of the ouster and, therefore, Schedule III of the Bengal Tenancy Act clearly applies. It is immaterial in my opinion that the landlords put their case too high at the outset in claiming that the lands were zeraits and that no rights of tenancy could exist therein.

10. To hold otherwise would in my opinion be reading into Article 3 words that are not contained in the Statute.

11. On general grounds also I would hold that the policy of the Legislature since 1885 is to rigorously exclude all other Statutes of Limitation whenever it is possible to apply the special limitation provided by the Rent Acts. So it has been held that in districts where Act X of 1859 still applies, a raiyat who has been illegally ejected by his landlord must sue to recover possession within 1 year under Sections 25 and 30 of the Act and is precluded from proceeding u/s 9 of the Specific Relief Act in, the Civil Court, Jumla Singh v, E.G. Kingsley 21 Ind. Cas. 224 : 17 C.W.N. 1201.