Sir Madhavan Nair.-This is an appeal from a judgment and decree of the High Court of Judicature at Madras1, dated 28th September, 1943, which reversed a judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Masulipatam, dated 6th September, 1941, and allowed the plaintiff’s suit with costs.

The appellants before the Board were defendants 1 to 30, and will, hereinafter, be referred to as the “defendants.” Respondent I was the sole plaintiff in the suit. He will be referred to hereinafter as the “plaintiff.” The other respondents were defendants, and are said to have changed sides and now joined respondent 1.

The appeal arises out of a suit instituted by the plaintiff, an inamdar (holder of an inam), to eject a large number of cultivating ryots of lands, 20.28 acres in extent, situated in the village of Lellagaruvu, in the taluk of Bandar, Kistna District.

Inam is a well-known word of “arabic” origin which means reward or favour. The word came into use after the Muhammadan conquest. In ancient days, grants of land, or revenue, were made by Hindu sovereigns to individuals, particular families, or communities for various purposes, or to religious institutions, for their upkeep. These were known as “Manyams.” The practice was continued by the Muhammadan rulers, and later, by the East India Company also, till it was discontinued in the earlier years of the 19th century, as a result of instructions received from the Directors of the Company. Thenceforward, gifts of land were granted only in special cases, the ordinary cases being provided for by the grant of money pensions.

Inams in the Presidency of Madras are of two kinds; first, those where the proprietary right in the soil and the right to the Government share of the revenue derivable from land coalesce in the same individual, and secondly, those where the proprietary or occupancy right is vested in one or more individuals, whilst the Government share of the revenue has been granted to another (para. 71, Mr. W. T. Blair’s report on the operations of the Inam Commission, dated 30th October, 1869).

“An inam holding may be of a field only, or a village or a tract of several villages”. (Land Systems of British India by Baden Powell, Vol. 111, p. 140). Grants consisting of a whole village or more than one village are technically called major inams to distinguish them from minor inams which are grants of something less than a village. (See Secretary of State v. Thinnappa Chettiar1.) The suit inam being only a small portion of a village is a minor inam and is mentioned as such, in Exhibit N.

In para. 4 of his well-known report Mr. Blair thus describes the origin of the minor inams:

“During the period of anarchy which followed the overthrow of the Native dynasties and which continued, though in a less degree, after the establishment of the Mohammadan rule in Southern India, the power of granting inams was assumed by various petty chiefs, officers of Government, and others, who alienated the revenues to a considerable extent. Of such origin are most of the minor inams granted by the Zamindars, by the various faujdars and even by renters in the Northern Circars; and those given by the numerous poligars of the Ceded Districts and the southern province of the Presidency.”

Two questions arise for decision in this appeal; (1) Whether in a suit by a holder of a minor inam to eject the tenants from the holding, the burden is on the plaintiff to make out a right to evict by proving that the grant included both the melvaram and the kudivaram interests or that the tenants or their predecessors were let into possession by the inamdar under a terminable lease, or whether the burden is on the tenants to prove that they have occupancy rights. (2) Whichever way the burden lies, whether the burden has been discharged in the present case by the party on whom it lies.

The first is a question of law, and the second is mainly a question of fact.

The suit inam was granted to one Putcha Viswanadham Bhotlu as personal