1839.] Report on the District of Azimgurh. 121 



remain on the file ten years or more. When the Civil Courts had 

 the charge of the summary file, very few decisions were ever passed, 

 and these few were, based on no fixed principles. Contumacious cul- 

 tivators derided the efforts of the proprietor to compel payment by the 

 institution of summary suits, whilst these were still placed on the 

 file by the disheartened proprietors, lest failure to assert the claim 

 might have compelled reference to a regular suit, which seemed more 

 expensive and still more hopeless of speedy termination. 



108th. A recourse to distress and sale of personal property of the 

 tenant was equally fruitless, replevin immediately took place, and 

 further proceeding was stopped till that could be disposed of. 



109th. A very different state of things has followed close upon this. 

 Within the last three years summary suits have been decided and 

 enforced, through the agency of the Tuhsildars, with a promptitude 

 never known before. A month or six weeks is the average duration 

 of a suit, and none lie over for more than three months, whilst the 

 Cutcherry of the Tuhsildar is a tribunal at the door of every man. In 

 the mean time, the Special Commission has nearly closed its course, 

 rent rates have been adjusted, and boundary and Putteedar disputes 

 settled. It must also be remembered that the division of property is 

 very minute, the number of subordinate tenures large, and that every 

 effort has been used to induce the Malgoozars to have recourse to 

 summary suits, instead of relying on the irregular and illegal inter- 

 ference which used to be exercised by the Tuhsildars in the adjust- 

 ment of their Putteedaree disputes, and collection of their rents. When 

 all these things are taken into consideration, it will not perhaps be 

 considered strange that the summary suit file is heavy. It will rather 

 be thought a happy proof of the efficiency of the process, and a sure 

 indication that regularity and legal modes of redress are rapidly taking 

 the place of confusion and misrule. 



110th. The state of the rent free lands requires some notice. All 

 the claims to hold land free from the payment of revenue have been 

 investigated and finally disposed of. The quantity resumed and set- 

 tled is very large. This consisted mostly of unauthorized grants by 

 A mils, or Tuhsildars, or Zemindars, in which the original grantee, 

 however, had generally demised, and the property had devolved upon 

 the heir, contrary even to the terms of the grants. A large portion of 

 the grants had conveyed tracts of waste land which had been brought 

 into cultivation after the commencement of our rule. 



111th. An uniform principle regulated the settlement of all these 

 tenures. Possession and the actual state of things was maintained so 

 far as it was unaffected by the assertion of the right of the Govern- 



