Settlement officer competent to decide the question.

This is a Revision Petition by the State of Madras against an order passed by the District Judge of Madurai setting aside the Order of the District Munsif directing a plaint to be returned for disposal by the Settlement Officer under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (XXVI of 1948).

The short facts are these: The plaintiff filed this suit after this Act was passed for a declaration that 2 acres of land in S.No.244, and 1 acre of land in S.No. 215 in the village of Narasingam of the Thirumuhur Devasthanam were his ryoti lands and for a permanent injunction restraining the Government of Madras from in any way interfering with his enjoyment. The plaintiff relied mainly on the fact that he filed a suit for a patta against the Collector in respect of these lands, which was dismissed in the first instance, but decreed by the District Judge of Madurai in A.S. No. 103 of 1927 on 8th December, 1927. The two suit items were admittedly in land registered as tank poromboke. The proprietor of the estate was a Devasthanam The plaintiff relied on the fact that one manager made an assignment to him for which he paid some money and then went out of office. According to the judgment in A.S.No.103 of 1927, the assignment was cancelled by the subsequent manager on the 7th June, 1926. The Deputy Collector dismissed the suit for patta on two grounds: (1) that the lands applied for were not ryoti lands, but tank bed lands, and (2) that the assignment was invalid because it was made by the senior proprietor alone without the consent of the remaining proprietors. As regards the first ground, the District Judge held that there was no doubt that the lands were originally tank bed and were still registered as tank bed in the accounts. He, however, took the view on the footing of some evidence recorded in the suit that the lands were not required for the water spread of the tank and as the karnam examined deposed to some other assignments of tank bed, he decreed the suit for patta.

It is however common ground that since that judgment in 1927 these lands have still remained registered in the revenue accounts as tank bed poromboke. The plaintiff applied under section 20-A of the Estates Land Act on 22nd April, 1926, for conversion of these two items from tank poromboke to ryoti land. This application, according to the plaint, was rejected by the Collector and an appeal was dismissed by the Board of Revenue. Paragraph 5 of the plaint alleges that the plaintiff in April, 1941, applied to the Tahsildar of Madurai Taluk for permission to use the Periyar water for these lands. Permission was refused on the ground that the lands were not classified as ryoti in the Government accounts. Plaintiff then applied on 7th April, 1944, to the Collector of Madurai for recognition of the lands as ryoti on the ground that without such recognition it was not possible for him to get a water permit for raising wet crops on his lands. According to the plaint, this petition was rejected with the observation that the plaintiff could make an application under section 20-A of the Madras Estates Land Act. He made his application, which, however, was also rejected and a revision petition to the Board of Revenue, according to the plaint, failed.

The Estates Abolition Act XXVI of 1948 casts upon all applicants, who consider themselves entitled to a ryotwari patta, to make an application to the Settlement Officer to whom the District Munsif referred the plaintiff. There does not appear to have been any attempt made by the revenue authorities to evict the plaintiff from those lands, i.e., if he has ever cultivated them, a matter open to some doubt,, without his being able to establish his right to take any water.

The learned Government Pleader urges that under section 3(c) and (g) of the new Act,

“all rights and interests created in or over the estate before the notified date by the principal or any other landholder, shall as against the Government cease a