JUDGMENT
Nasim Ali, J.
1. This is an appeal by the defendant in a suit for assessment of fair and equitable rent of a certain holding. The main defence of the tenant was that Section 109 of the Bengal Tenancy Act is a bar to the present suit. The Courts below have decreed the plaintiff’s suit. In the present appeal of the tenant the only point urged by the learned Advocate for the appellant is that the present suit is not maintainable in view of the provisions of Section 109 of the Bengal Tenancy Act as it stood before the amendment in 1928.
2. It appears that the suit was instituted before the new Act came into operation. It cannot be disputed that at the time when the suit was instituted Section 109 of the Bengal Tenancy Act as it then stood was a bar to the plaintiffs’ suit. The question is whether this bar was removed by the amendment which came into force in February 1929. I am clearly of opinion that the amended provisions cannot revive a right which was already extinguished by operations of the previous law. Under the law as it stood before the amendment plaintiffs were precluded from bringing a suit for settlement of fair and equitable rent of the holding. The tenant under the old law therefore acquired a very valuable right, in view of the withdrawal of the previous proceedings for settlement of fair and equitable rent. The new provisions introduced by the Amending Act either by express words or by necessary intendment has not taken away that right of the tenant. Consequently the plaintiffs are not entitled in the present suit to enforce a right which they had already lost by the operation of the law as they stood before the amendment. This view is supported by two decisions of this Court. See Gosta Behari Pramanik v. Nawab Bahadur of Murshidiabad , and Jnanendra Narayan Bagchi v. Sarada Sundari Dasi .
3. The result, therefore, is that this appeal is allowed. The judgments and decrees of the Courts below are set aside and the suit stands dismissed with costs through out.
