JUDGMENT

KANIA, J.:- This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment and order of a learned single Judge of the Karnataka High Court in Regular Second Appeal No. 17 of 1987 filed in the said High Court.

2. As we are generally in agreement with the reasoning and conclusions in the judgment of the Karnataka High Court relied upon by the learned single Judge in the impugned judgment, the appeal can be disposed of shortly.

3. About 250 acres of wooded evergreen land in the district of Coorg was given by a grant to the ancestors of the respondent over a hundred years ago. The said district was a Scheduled district under the control of the Governor-General of India. The terms of the said grant which is very old are not available but there is no dispute that the said land was granted to the ancestors of the respondent.

4. On November 1, 1899 Regulation No. 1 of 1899, called the Coorg Land and Revenue Regulation, 1899 came into force in the district of Coorg. We propose to refer to the said Regulation as the Coorg Regulation. It applied to the entire territories administered by the Chief Commissioner of Coorg. We may at this stage take a brief note of some of the relevant provisions of the Coorg  Regulation as they stood at the time relevant .for the purpose of this appeal. The Coorg Regulation was enacted in order to amend and declare the law in force in Coorg in respect of the land and land revenue. Regulation 4 of the Coorg Regulation prescribes the classes of Revenue Officers. One of these is the Chief Commissioner and one other is the Revenue Officer. Chapter VI of the Coorg. Regulation deals with the records of rights and annual records. Regulation 29 in this Chapter provides that there shall be a record of rights for every estate. Clause (2) of Regulation 29 states that when it appears to the Chief Commissioner that a record of .rights for an estate does not exist or that the existing record of rights for an estate requires special revision, the Chief Commissioner shall by notification direct that a record of rights be made or that the record of rights be specially revised, as the case may be. Regulation 30 inter alia provides that the nature and extent of the interests of the landholders, tenants or assignees of land revenue in the estate shall be stated in the record of rights. Regulation 35 deals with the restrictions on variations of entries in records and, gener1ly speaking, provides that entries in records -of-rights or annual records cannot be varied except as provided in clauses (a) to (c) thereof. Clause (a) of Regulation 35, the only possible relevant clause for the purposes of this appeal, provides that entries can be varied in accordance with the facts admitted or found by inquiry under Regulation 34 of the Coorg Regulation. Regulation 46 provides that any person who is aggrieved as to any right of which he is in possession by an entry in a record of rights can file a declaratory suit to establish his right. Shri Gustav Hailer, Settlement Officer, Coorg made his report by way of proposals for Land Revenue Resettlement of the Province of Coorg, on February IB, 1910 to the Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Coorg. The contents of the report shows that it was made after examining the revenue settlements made earlier. Pursuant to the said report a patta was given to the ancestors of the respondent in 1912 granting the aforesaid lands and in that patta there was an endorsement reading "redeemed coffee sagawali malai". The word "sagawali" means cultivation and the word "malai" means "hill". It is common ground that the word "redeemed" used in this entry would show that the price of the standing timber on the said land had been paid by the grantee by the time when the patta was made. It may be mentioned here that in the settlements in Coorg where the land was granted with the endorsement "unredeemed", it meant. that the standing timber had not been paid for and the grantee would have to pay for the same if the gra