Judgement

Consolidated Appeals from a judgment and three decrees (February 18, 1913) varying three decrees of the District Judge of Trichinopoly (July 27, 1909), which varied decrees of the District Munsif of Kulitalai.

The suits which gave rise to the present consolidated appeals were brought in the Court of the District Munsif by one Rangaratnam Aiyer, since deceased, and now represented by the appellants, against numerous defendants represented by the respondents. The plaintiff claimed to eject the defendants, the persons in possession of the lands in question, as being yearly tenants who had received due notice to quit.

The plaintiffs title was not in dispute in the appeals. It appeared that the lands in question formed part of a samudayam estate long held in common by certain Brahman families, and (with other land) fell to the plaintiff, one of the pangalis or sharers, upon a partition in 1897. In 1869 and in 1885 pattas had been issued to the sharers by the Government " showing the particulars of land in your occupation, the assessment charged on each field and the kist payable to the monegar." These pattas consolidated the holdings which as to the greater part came under a settlement by the collector and an inam grant both made at the beginning of the century.

The lands in suit had originally been waste, and at the date of the plaint were of three classes—namely, (1.) garden lands—i.e., lands with a well; (2.) dry lands—i.e., lands cultivated but containing no well; and (3.) pasture lands which Had never been brought under cultivation.

The effect of the decrees passed by the Courts in India, and the views upon which they were based, appear shortly from the judgment of their Lordships. The present appeal related to lands of the first two classes above mentioned, as to which the High Court upon a second appeal had reversed decrees made by the District Judge in favour of the plaintiff ; no question arose as to the pasture lands, as to which the High Court affirmed the decrees of the District Judge for possession.

In the High Court the learned judges (Benson and Sandara Aiyar JJ.) in their judgment said that they had pointed out in the order of remand that the District Judge was wrong in starting with the assumption that ryots holding under a pattadar must be held to have been originally tenants from year to year, who were bound to show that their right was subsequently converted into a permanent right; there was a great deal of evidence adduced by both parties which would have enabled the Court to give a decision on the question of the occupancy right claimed quite irrespective of the onus of proof. The District Judge in his order sub mitting findings had again assumed that the defendants original right was as tenants from year to year, and that it lay on them to prove an express or implied contract by which that right was changed to one of permanent occupancy. Referring to the facts found by the District Judge and the facts admitted, the learned judges said “We take it as established (1.) that the ryots of the village have been immemorially in possession of the lands, and that they have not been proved to have been ever let into occupation by the mirasidars ; (2.) that they have been paying a uniform rate of rent; (3.) that the lands were reclaimed and brought under cultivation by them ; (4.) that they have made large improvements and carried on the cultivation either of dry or garden crops of their own choice without any interference or objection by the mirasidars ; (5.) that they have for a very long time been making alienations, sometimes of wells, sometimes of both wells and lands, and sometimes of the right of cultivating the lands along with the wells alienated. The question for decision is whether on these facts the plaintiff is entitled to eject the defendants on the mere ground that he is the pattadar of the lands." After a consideration of the various decisions of the Madras High Court and passages in the Fifth