JUDGMENT : Strachey, C.J.:— The learned Judge of this Court has given the plaintiff a decree declaring “that the lease mentioned in the plaint is an invalid lease.” The property leased is situate in a village in which the plaintiff and the first defendant-appellant are co-sharers. The plaintiff's share consists of one-twelfth of a ten biswa share, and the first appellant is owner of the remaining eleven-twelfths. The father of the first appellant was the lambardar of the village. The land in dispute had formerly been held by an occupancy tenant at a rent of lis. 148 a year. But it is found by the lower appellate Court that the rent was never paid, and consequently the occupancy tenant was ejected from the holding. Alter that ejectment the lease now in question was executed by the lambardar in favour of the other defendants in this suit, It was a lease for ten years at a rent of Rs. 120 a year, and the lessees covenanted to construct on the property a pucca well at a cost of Its. 300 which, at the termination of the lease, was to become the property of the co-sharers. The plaintiff in this suit seeks a declaration that the lambardar had no power to make the lease in as much as it was not executed with his consent. As regards consent the fact appears to be that he neither gave nor refused his consent. The lambardar appears to have executed the lease without reference to the plaintiff. In answer to issues remitted by us to the lower appellate Court it has been found that it was under the circumstances necessary, in order that this land should be cultivated and to obtain the benefit therefrom of the co-parceners, that the lambardar should make a lease of it for ten years and that these benefits could not have been obtained by any lease for a shorter period. It appears that this land is of inferior quality and that it contained no pucca well for purposes of irrigation. Upon the facts found by the Court below it appears that if the lambardar had not executed this lease for 10 years, the land would not have been cultivated at all, and would have yielded no profit to the co-parceners. It appears that this land is of inferior quality and that it contained no pucca well for purposes of irrigation. Upon the facts found by the Court below it appears that if the lambardar had not executed this lease for 10 years, the land would not have been cultivated at all, and would have yielded no profit to the co-parceners. Under these circumstances it appears to me that even in the absence of proof of any custom in the village authorising the lambardar to grant leases, the lease now in question was within the lambardar s authority. Several cases have been cited, but the one, which appears to me most in point, is an unreported case, Roshan Lal v. Muhammad Fazl Husain Khan, S.A. No. 123 of 1898, decided on 14th June, 1000. by Mr. Justice Banerji and Mr. Justice Aikman. It was there held to be within the competency of the lambardar to grant a lease for ten years for reclaiming banjar land, the lease being for the benefit of the co-parcenary body. The decision in Jagan Nath v. Hardayal, [1897] 17 A.W.N., 207. had reference to a perpetual lease. There is a passage in that judgment to the effect that “in order to have the co-parcenary land cultivated, to obtain the benefit therefrom of the co-parcenary body, it is reasonable that a lambardar should have power, unless it is expressly, withheld from him, to make a temporary letting of the co-parce-nary land.” That seems to apply fully to a lease for ten years executed by a lambardar under the circumstances found to exist in this case. The observation in the preceding sentence of the judgment in that case which seems to suggest that the lambardars power to lease co-parcenary land is limited to the requirements of a “particular year or particular season,” was not necessary for the decision, and it must, I think, be taken as qualified to some extent by the following sentence which without limitation to the requirements of a particular year or season expressly refers to a temporary letting which is necessary for the cultivation of co-parcenary land. In Bansidhar v. Dip Singh, [1898] I.L.R., 20 All., 438., the decision appears to have been based on the special circumstances of the particular lease there in question. In Bansidhar v. Dip Singh, [1898] I.L.R., 20 All., 438., the decision appears to have been based on the special circumstances of the particular lease there in question. It was a lease for ten years of land producing valuable munj grass at an inadequate rent and made with the object not of cultivating the co-parcenary land but of damnifying a successful opponent of the) lessor in a certain partition proceeding. I am unable to agree with the learned Judge of this Court, and I think that this appeal must be allowed. The decree of this Court is set aside, and that of the lower appellate Court dismissing the suit, restored with costs in all Courts. Banerji, J.:— I entirely agree. It having been found that it was necessary for the benefit of the co-parcenary body that the lambardar should make the lease impugned in this case, the plaintiff's suit must fail. In this view I need not pronounce any opinion as to the correctness or otherwise of the dictum in Jagan Nath v. Hardial, [1897] 17 A.W.N., p. 207., that a lambardar has no general power to grant any lease of co-parcenary land beyond such as the circumstances of the particular year or season may require, although I must say that I should have great hesitation in accepting that view.