Judgement

Consolidated Appeals (No. 54 of 1944) from a judgment and two decrees of the High Court (December 11, 1941) modifying a preliminary and a final decree of the Subordinate Court of Cocanada (March 7, 1937 and March 25, 1938).

The following facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee. In 1923 there was pending a litigation between the Maharaja of Pithapuram (respondent in the first two of these consolidated appeals and appellant in the cross-appeal) and the plaintiffs in the present suit (appellants respectively in the first two appeals and respondents in the cross-appeal), in which the Maharaja claimed that he was the nearest reversioner entitled to succeed to the estate of Gollaprolu. The Maharaja held a decree pronounced in his favour by the District Judge of Rajahmundry but the present plaintiffs had appealed against it to the Madras High Court. While that appeal was pending the Maharaja, on November 10, 1923, applied to the collector of Gadavari to be recognized as the landholder of the estate for the purposes of the Madras Estates Land Act subject to the ultimate result of the litigation then pending. After sundry procedure not germane to the present is