Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, C.J.

1. This appeal raises a question of great public importance. The Court is called upon to decide what are the powers of the Government with regard to the distribution of water in two reservoirs, or tanks as they are usually called in India from which the city of Madras receives its water-supply. One tank is known as the Cholavaram tank, and the other as the Red Hills tank. They lie close to one another, some fifteen miles from the city of Madras. Before 1870 when the Government undertook a scheme to increase the storage capacity of these tanks with the primary object of supplying water to Madras, the water in the tanks was used merely for the purpose of irrigating lands in the vicinity. Near to the tanks in the river Cortelliar, but before the scheme was carried out there was no connection between the river and the tanks and the level of the water in them depended on the rain which fell in the catchment area. The evidence, however, discloses that the water in the Red Hills tank was sufficient in a normal year for the cultivation of one crop at least in an ayacut of over 5,000 acres. The scheme provided for the damming of the Cortelliar river, t