The burden of proof in a land dispute lies upon the party claiming ownership, and the provisions of the relevant land acts are applied to determine the burden of proof.

King, J.

1. The appellant is the owner of about 15 acres of land in the village of Paidemukkala Agraharam Chellapalli taluk of the Kistna District. He sued the respondents for arrears of rent. originally in the Court of the Deputy Collector of the Nuzvid Division. When that suit was filed, the respondents took the objection that, upon the allegations in the plaint, the appellant had not established that the property formed part of an estate and therefore that no suit lay in the Court of the Deputy Collector. The Deputy Collector accepted this contention and passed an order returning the plaint for presentation to the proper Court. The appellant accordingly filed his plaint in the Court of the District Munsif of Gudivada who gave him a decree for the greater portion of the amount claimed. There was then an appeal by the defendants to the learned Subordinate Judge of Masulipatam who held that the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit, on the ground that the appellant had not made out that the land on which the rent was due was not a portion of an estate. Against this decision of the learned Subordinate Judge the present appeal has been filed.

2. The first point argued in favour of the appeal is that the respondents were estopped from contending that the Civil Court had no jurisdiction. My attention has been called to certain rulings. Hemanta Kumari Devi V. Prusanna Kumar Datta I.L.R.(1928) Cal. 584, and Ram Khalevan Singh v. Maharajah of Benares AIR1930All15 , in which it is laid down that when a party objects to the jurisdiction of one Court and procures an adjudication in his favour on that point and the plaint is thereupon filed in another Court, he is estopped from putting forward a contrary view of the question of jurisdiction to the one already taken. It seems to me that there could be no question of estoppel in this case at all. It will be obvious from a consideration of Section 115 of the Evidence Act that estoppel consists, not in putting forward a particular view of the law, but in making a particular representation on a point of fact. It is only when there has been one representation on a question of fact that a party is estopped from putting forward a contrary representation on the same question of fact. That has quite clearly not been done in the present case. All that was asserted at the trial before the Deputy Collector was that on the recitals of the plaint itself, the suit would not lie in that Court. In other words, any representations which were made to the Court were made, not by the defendants, but by the plaintiff and it is impossible to argue that, whatever point of law the defendants might have put forward, they can be prevented from putting forward, representations of fact for the first time when the plaint was actually filed in the Civil Court. There can be no doubt therefore that the plea of estoppel must fail.

3. The next question as whether the learned Subordinate Judge is right in holding that the burden of proof in this ease lay upon the plaintiff. It is argued for the plaintiff-appellant that the original burden of proof certainly lay upon the defendants. The plaintiff has brought a suit in the Civil Court and if any one chooses to assert that a Civil Court has no jurisdiction to try any suit, the burden of proof lies upon that person to establish his assertion. That is no doubt true; but the argument for the defendants is that the original burden which lay upon them has been in part discharged by stressing the common feature of this case that the lands in question are situated in Paidemukkala Agraharam. The word Agraharam. naturally indicates that the village of Paidemukkala is an inam village, and if it be once conceded that Paidemukkala Agraharam is an inam village, Section 28 of the Madras Estates Land Act as it now stands throws the burden upon the plaintiff. The only evidence in the case of any value is Ex. V. This is a certified copy of a register of inams in the villag