JUDGMENT

1. To understand the facts of the case, it is necessary to refer to a map, drawn not exactly but only approximately to scale, which forms a part of the plaint. The Plaintiff Company is the owner of the Gopalpur Tea Estate. The Defendants Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are the Anjuman Tea Company, Limited, the Lankapara Tea Company, Ltd. and the Needam Tea Company, Ltd., their Tea Estates being known respectively as Makrapara, Lankapara and Dalmore. The relative positions of these tea estates are that Lankapara and Makrapara lie to the east and west, side by side; Dalmore is on the south of Makrapara and Gopalpur lies on the south of Dalmore. Their common landlord is the Defendant No. 4, the Secretary of State for India in Council. A hill-stream of considerable volume and velocity, which goes by the name of river Pugli, takes its rise in the Bhutan Hills and emerging in the slopy plains on the south, enters the British territory at some points to the north of the Makrapara and the Lankapara Tea Estates and flows in a south-westerly direction. It shoots off in its course branches of which the two nearest to the area with which this case is concerned are first, the river Sukantiti and next,