Judgement Appeal from a judgment and decree of the High Court (March 13, 1913) reversing a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Midnapur. The suit was instituted by the appellants for a declaration that they were occupancy raiyats, and not tenure-holders, of certain char lands in Bengal, and for the settlement of a fair and equitable rent. The facts, so far as they are material to this report, appear from the judgment of their Lordships. The Subordinate Judge made a decree in favour of the appellants. He held that the presumptions arose under the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, that the appellants were tenure-holders, first, under s. 104 H, since they had been so entered in the record of rights ; secondly, under s. 5, sub-s. 5, since the land exceeded 100 standard bighas in extent; but he held that those presumptions were rebutted. In support of that view he relied upon his finding of fact that the land was taken for reclamation purposes, there being then no tenants upon it. and upon evidence referred to in the judgment of their Lordships, which he considered showed that the Government had recognized the appellants and their predecessors as raiyats. Upon the first finding he relied upon Durga Prosunno Ghose v. Kalidas But (( 1881) 9 Cal. L. R. 449.) as an authority that the appellants were raiyats. The High Court reversed the decision. The learned judges (Chitty and Teunon J.T.) said that it was clear on the evidence, and was conceded, that Rupnarayan did not acquire the land for the purpose of cultivating it either by himself or by members of his family, and that there was no evidence that he proposed to cultivate it by hired labour. They held that the. acts relied on as being recognitions by the Government of the tenure as raiyati did not outweigh the considerations which led to the conclusion that the appellants were tenure-holders under s. 5, sub-s. 1, of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885. Upon a contention that rights as raiyats had accrued prior to that Act they held that s. 5, sub-s. 1, of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, by the words " or bringing it under cultivation by establishing tenants on it" had not effected a change in the law as to what constituted a tenure-holder. Upon a contention that rights as raiyats had accrued prior to that Act they held that s. 5, sub-s. 1, of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, by the words " or bringing it under cultivation by establishing tenants on it" had not effected a change in the law as to what constituted a tenure-holder. They said that the test laid down in the direction relied on by the Subordinate Judge for the purpose of distinguishing between a raiyati holding and a tenure had in later cases been held not to be exhaustive. Further, the contention was based upon the finding that there were no tenants on the land in 1833, with which finding they disagreed. They stated that if they had held that the appellants were raiyats they would have remanded the case for the fixing of a fair and equitable rent under s. 104 H. 1918. May 2, 3. Dunne K.C. for the appellants. The appellants should have been recorded as raiyats. The decision in Debendra Nath Das v. Bibudhendra Bhramarbar Roy (( 1918) L. R. 45 I. A. 72.) does not apply, as in this case the appellants had accrued rights as raiyats prior to the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, coming into operation. Those rights were not taken away by that Act; they were expressly preserved by s. 19. The status of the appellants is to be determined by the law and the circumstances at the time when the tenancy was created. At that time the lands were unoccupied and Rupnarayan obtained actual possession. His interest therefore was a raiyati interest, and it was not altered upon his subsequently letting the lands Durga Prosunno Ghose v. Kalidas But. (9 Cal. L. R. 449.) The Government from 1840 onwards recognized that the holding was raiyati. The Tenancy Acts of 1859 and 1869 contained no definition of a " raiyat," and the holding was raiyati under those Acts ; that is supported by the terms of s. 6 of the former Act. Sect. 5 of the Act of 1885, by defining a tenure-holder as including one who has let to cultivating tenants, altered the law. But if that is not so, the holding was raiyati prior to 1859, and neither the Act of 1859 nor that of 1869 took away rights which had previously accrued. Sir Erle Richards K.C. and Sir William Garth for the respondent were not called upon. But if that is not so, the holding was raiyati prior to 1859, and neither the Act of 1859 nor that of 1869 took away rights which had previously accrued. Sir Erle Richards K.C. and Sir William Garth for the respondent were not called upon. June 3. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by LORD SUMNER. A record of rights under ch. 10 of the Bengal Tenancy Act (VIII. of 1885) was published on September 2, 1908, under which the appellants were entered as “tenure-holders" of Mauza Rupnarayan Char, which is situated on the river Hugli within the khas mahal of the Government in the district of Midnapur. The rent, which had been payable under the previous settlement, was on this occasion considerably enhanced. Being aggrieved by this increase, the appellants brought the present suit for a declaration that they were "raiyats" and not "tenure-holders," and for a reduction of the rent to a fair and equitable sum under s. 104 H of that Act. Whether they really are " raiyats ultimately depends on questions of fact; one must "look to the attendant circumstances to judge of the purpose" for which the land was acquired Debendra Nath Das v. Bibudhendra Bhramarbar Roy. (L. R. 45 I. A. 72.) The trial judge decided in their favour, but his decision was reversed on appeal. It lay on the appellants to rebut the statutory presumption that the record of rights was correct (s. 103 (b)), and, as the holding exceeded 100 bighas, the further statutory presumption that the holders of it were “tenure-holders “(s. 5, sub-s, 5). Furthermore, the time and circumstances of the origin of their rights were in this case not mere "matter of conjecture or of inference, but were proved in substance and in considerable detail. The evidence is examined at length in the judgment under appeal. Rupnarayan, the plaintiffs original predecessor in title, was not a cultivator. He was by caste a Kayestha and by occupation a petty Government official, a local salt daroga. Before his time the Government had no tenant on the land, which had been diluviated and was unoccupied. In the early thirties of the last century he found money—and no small sum either—with which he began to build embankments and other works to reclaim the char lands then reforming in the river bed. Before his time the Government had no tenant on the land, which had been diluviated and was unoccupied. In the early thirties of the last century he found money—and no small sum either—with which he began to build embankments and other works to reclaim the char lands then reforming in the river bed. The char afterwards bore his name and eventually the land was brought into cultivation. It is certain that, at some later date, actual cultivation was being done by peasants, who paid rent to Rupnarayan, as they do still to his successors, and there is no evidence that Rupnarayan or his sons or his servants ever actually cultivated a single bigha. He did not reside on the char, but followed his avocation elsewhere. A ruidad of 1844, relied on by the plaintiffs, which narrates the origin of this reclamation, describes him as having been of Majipara, in the district of Nadia. These simple facts led the High Court to the conclusion that he was not what the Bengal Tenancy Act (s. 5) calls a "raiyat"; he was, in fact, a middleman, and a very useful one. The question is, "For what purpose was the land originally acquired?" The answer is plain He reclaimed the char in order to make money out of it by letting land to cultivators. In view of these facts, it is impossible to say that the High Court were wrong in holding that he was neither a cultivator nor a raiyat, in the sense in which that term is used either in the Bengal Tenancy Act or in ordinary speech. That being so, the plaintiffs tenure, which was derived from him, was not a raiyati holding, and their case failed. It is true that they produced a series of documents beginning about 1840 and coming down to 1882, and relied on them as showing that this char had been reputed to be a raiyati holding, but until 1879 none used that word. At most they were consistent with a raiyati holding, if that holding could otherwise be established. In themselves they were neutral and obscure. At most they were consistent with a raiyati holding, if that holding could otherwise be established. In themselves they were neutral and obscure. In their Lordships opinion the learned trial judge placed on them a value which was higher than they could bear, and appears to have found support for the view which he took of the plaintiffs documents in the view which he took of the defendants witnesses, namely, that they were perjurers. In 1879, forty odd years after Rupnarayans right had accrued, whatever it really was, some one served the plaintiffs with a notice of enhancement of rent under Bengal Act VIII. of 1879 as being raiyats, and in 1882 the Board of Revenue, in pronouncing on their petition for reduction of the recently settled rental, point out that the petition laid claim to a hereditary and transferable tenure without showing any justification for it, and observe that in 1845 and recently the tenure had been in fact treated as raiyati, a view which the documents produced only doubtfully support. After allowing the fullest weight to these official documents as evidence, which is not considerable, their Lordships must observe that the first does not purport to have been prepared by any one who had knowledge of the facts, and that if the second rested, as seems to be the case, on the documents produced by the plaintiffs at the trial, its statements are only doubtfully supported by them. Their Lordships are unable to think that these records are sufficient, even in conjunction with the earlier documents produced, to rebut the above-mentioned presumptions, or to establish that the appellants rights are those of occupancy raiyats. Sect. 19 of the Bengal Tenancy Act saved rights, accrued and existing before it came into force, and no doubt the nature of those rights must be judged in accordance with the law as it stood when they arose, unless subsequent changes in the law have operated to alter them. Sect. 19 of the Bengal Tenancy Act saved rights, accrued and existing before it came into force, and no doubt the nature of those rights must be judged in accordance with the law as it stood when they arose, unless subsequent changes in the law have operated to alter them. It is contended that not only were the terms " raiyat " and " tenure-holder " undefined by any statute before 1885, but that the definition then given to them did not reproduce the meaning which they had previously borne, and that, in fact, in the middle of the nineteenth century " raiyat " would have been the term to apply to Rupnarayan, even though he reclaimed the land merely in order that it might be cultivated by others paying rent to himself and without any intention of cultivating on his own account, and that accordingly he acquired and passed on a raiyati holding, which, though not raiyati within the statute for the purposes of its definition, would still be within it for the purpose of the relief given by s. 104 H. No decision was produced to that effect the judgment of Field J. in the case of Durga Prosunno Ghose v. Kalidas Dut (9 Cal. L. R. 449.), when carefully examined, has clearly a different import. No universal definition of a raiyati interest was there laid down. No instance was cited to their Lordships of such a use of the word " raiyat," and the use of the words " cultivated or held " in s. 6 of the Tenancy Act (X. of 1859) has no such effect, and therefore need not be particularly examined. The appeal fails, and their Lordships will humbly advise His Majesty that it should be dismissed with costs.