The judgment established that the Board of Revenue's order, if illegal and invading vested rights, can be challenged through a suit for a declaration of right to the office.

Wadsworth, J.

1. This appeal is preferred by the plaintiff in a suit brought by him for a declaration that he is the legal holder of the office of village headman in a Government village and that the appointment of the second defendant in pursuance of the order of the Board of Revenue is illegal and for restraining the Government and the second defendant from interfering with his enjoyment of the office.

2. The facts are not in dispute. When the vacancy to the office occurred, the plaintiff was actually doing the work as a deputy. The second defendant is the son of a former dismissed occupant of the office and a cousin of the last actual holder of it. Both the Revenue Divisional Officer and the District Collector held that the plaintiff had a better claim to the office and the plaintiff was accordingly appointed and entered upon the duties of the office. I am informed that he is still the incumbent of the office getting the work done through a deputy. Against the Collectors order, the second defendant preferred what was called a second appeal to the Board of Revenue and the Board of Revenue passed an order, Ex. D, to the effect that it was in accordance with the spirit, if not with the letter of the Act, that the second defendants claims should be preferred to those of the plaintiff who, if not an absolute stranger, had very much weaker connection with the office. The Board proceeded to make a reference to the plaintiff as one not likely to do the work himself and observed:

The Board does not want a man of the plaintiffs type and considers it equitable to appoint the second defendant to the office.

3. The second defendant was accordingly appointed.

4. It has been held by both the Courts below that this is a suit relating to a claim to succeed to an office covered by the provisions of Section 13 and therefore under Section 21 of the Madras Act III of 1895, the jurisdiction of the Civil Court is ousted. It seems to me that this view of the case is erroneous. If the order passed by the Board of Revenue was one which the Board was legally competent to pass, then undoubtedly there would be an appointment of the second defendant to the office and a claim by any one else would be one which should have been brought by a suit under Section 13 in the Revenue Court. But the position taken up by the plaintiff in the present suit is that he is the legally appointed Village Munsif, that there has been no legal appointment of the second defendant and that the act of the Board of Revenue in trying to turn out the plaintiff from the office which he still holds and to put the second defendant into his place is an unwarranted invasion of the plaintiffs legal rights. If that case is made out, it is certainly not a case in which the plaintiff sued to establish his right to succeed to an office or to get the emoluments of an office. He already occupies the office and is still drawing its emoluments through his deputy. In fact the plaintiffs case is that having legal possession of the office, he seeks to avert a threat to that possession by the unlawful act of a powerful body. That, in my opinion, is a suit which the Civil Courts have jurisdiction to entertain.

5. The only question therefore is whether the order of the Board of Revenue on this so-called second appeal by the second defendant is a legal order which would have the effect of putting the plaintiff in the position of one seeking to establish his right to succeed to an office, or is it an unlawful attempt to invade the established rights which the plaintiff has already acquired. The scheme of Act III of 1895 is that when there is a vacancy to an hereditary office, the Collector shall fill that vacancy in accordance with the rules of primogeniture and that any dissatisfied claimant shall have the remedy of a suit before the Collector to establish that he has a better right. The powers of the Collector are in fact wielded in the first instance by the Revenue Divisional Officer by virtue of