Judgement

Consolidated Appeal (No. 38 of 1920), by special leave, from a judgment and five decrees of the High Court (August 17, 1915), affirming four and reversing one decree of the District Judge of Trichinopoly (October 28, 1908), who had affirmed three and reversed two decrees of the District Munsif.

The five suits which gave rise to the present consolidated appeal were instituted by the appellant in 1904 in the Court of the District Munsif to eject the defendants from lands occupied by them respectively in the village of Karappudayanpatti ; the plaint alleged that the defendants were tenants from year to year whose tenancies had been determined by notice. The appellant was head of the Thurayar math, and in that capacity held the village under an inam grant made in 1743. The defendants pleaded that they had permanent rights of occupancy.

The terms of the grant, the effect of the evidence, and the course of the proceedings in the Courts in India fully appear from the judgment of the Judicial Committee.

The Estates Land Act (I. of 1908, Mad.) was passed and came into operation after the decree of the trial judge and before that of the first appellate Court.

Special leave to appeal was granted, the suits being test suits.

1922. Feb. 13, 14, 16, 17. De Gruyther K.C. and Kenworthy Brown for the appellant.

Dunne K.C. and Dube for the respondents.

The arguments were mainly directed to the question of the burden of proof, the effect of the evidence, and of the findings of the Courts in India. Reference was made to Suryanarayana v. Patanna(L. R. 45 I. A. 209.); Upadrashta Venkata Sastrulu v. Divi Seetharamudu

(L. R. 46 I. A. 123.); Seturatnam Aiyar v. Venkatachala Gounden (L. R. 47 I. A. 76. Note that the words in the headnote, " The High Court.... made a decree for possession," should read, " The High Court .... dismissed the suit as to the lands above mentioned.”); Mayandi Chettiyar v. Chokkalingam Pillay (( 1904) L. R. 311. A. 83.); and, as to the jurisdiction upon a second appeal, to Durga Choudhrain v. Jawahir Singh Choudhri. (( 1890) L. R. 17 I A. 122.)

[VISCOUNT CAVE referred to Waterpark v. Fennell(( 1859) 7 H. L. C. 650.), and Hastings Corporation v. Ival. (( 1874) L. R. 19 Eq. 658.)

May 15. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by

MR. AMEER ALI These several consolidated appeals arise out of five suits brought by the plaintiff on July 27, 1904, in the Court of the District Munsif of Kulitalai in the Madras Presidency, in his capacity of head of a math, to eject the defendants from the lands in their occupation in the village of Karappudayanpatti, which he alleged belonged to his math. The defendants in the suit are cultivating tenants holding separate lands unconnected with each other. Accordingly, separate suits were brought against them.

Law Rep. 49 Ind. App. 286 ( 1921- 1922) Chidambara Sivaprakasa Pandara Sannadhigal V. Veerama Reddi 119

The plaintiffs case is that in the year 1743 the palegar of Thurayur, who owned the estate within which the village is situated, granted to the head of the math at the time the village in question; and that since then the successive holders of the office have been in possession and enjoyment not only of the right to the receipt of the dues payable by the tenants to the landlord, usually called in the Madras Presidency the melvaram, but also of the right to the actual occupancy of the lands technically called the kudivaram.

The five suits that were brought in the Munsifs Court were numbered 676, 677, 720, 721 and 722 of 1904. In suit No. 676 the plaintiff alleged that the particular tenant, for whose ejectment he was suing, held the land in dispute under a muchalka executed by the defendants predecessor on June 18, 1880, by which he bound himself to surrender the land in his occupation on failure to pay rent. In suit No. 720 the plaintiffs action related to two items of land, in respect of which he alleged that the defendants father had executed two muchalka on April 19, 1894,