Judgement

APPEAL from a judgment of the High Court of Madras (March 13, 1873), reversing a decree of the Civil Judge of Berhampore (December 23, 1871).

The talook of Chinnakimidy, otherwise called Pratapagheri, is an ancient hereditary zemindary, which descended from father to son for many generations before the British Government took possession of the territory subject to Fort St. George, at Madras, and made a permanent settlement with the zemindaries in the Northern Sircars in the year 1804.

At that time the assessment fixed upon this zemindary (then called Pratapagheri) was Star pagodas 15,714. 12., which was thereafter annually paid by the zemindar.

But the Madras Government, although it executed at that date a sunnad milkut istimrar in favour of the then zemindar, and sent the same to the Collector of Ganjam, declined to enter into any permanent settlement of the zemindary. It withheld the issue of the sunnad, and no kabuleat was ever executed by the zemindar as prescribed by Madras Regulation XXV. of 1802. The Government, moreover, on each occasion of a death vacancy appointed and recognised the successor to the zemindary, and a great mass of evidence was adduced in the suit