The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the Estates Land Act provisions to determine the classification of lands as part of an estate and the impact on the occupancy rights of the tenants.

Chandrasekhara Aiyar, J.

1. These two civil miscellaneous appeals and eight civil revision petitions are connected. I shall deal with the revision petitions first as all of them raise the same point.

2. The mokhasadars of Chilakapadu and Muppavaram filed suits in the District Munsiff s Court of Tanuku against their tenants for the recovery of rent and for ejectment. The tenants pleaded that they had occupancy rights in the lands as they form part of an "estate " within the meaning of the Estates Land Act and that the Civil Courts had no jurisdiction. This plea was upheld by the District MunsifF who directed the plaints to be returned for presentation to the proper Court. On appeals preferred by the mokhasadars, the Subordinate Judge of Ellore, reached the same conclusion and confirmed the decrees of the District Munsiff. These revision petitions are from the decision of the Subordinate Judge and raise the question whether the lands form part of an estate in which the defendants have occupancy rights. It was contended for the petitioners that the lands were not part of an estate for two reasons : firstly, because Clause (d) of Section 3(2) of the Estates Land Act will not apply as there is nothing to show that the grant was of an entire village and secondly, that Clause (e) of Section 3(2) is not applicable, as the grant was only of specific lands in the villages and not of one or more villages of any of the estates specified in Clauses (a), (b) and (c):

3. The first ground has ceased to be available to the petitioners because of the new Madras Act II of 1945 which enacts that " where a grant as an in am is expressed to be of a named village, the area which forms the subject-matter of the grant shall be deemed to be an estate notwithstanding that it did not include certain lands in the village of that name which have already been granted on service or other tenure or been reserved for communal purposes." Therefore even in a case where we find that certain lands in a named village were not included in the grant for some reasons, the land granted as in am would still be an estate.

4. Sub-clause (e) of Section 3(2) speaks of" any portion consisting of one or more villages of any of the estates specified above in Clauses (a), (b) and (c) which is held on a permanent under-tenure." The contention of the petitioners is that in the cases before us we have not got an entire village or villages forming part of the estates as defined in Sub-clauses (a), (b) and (c) and which are held.on a permanent under-tenure. In support of this contention, reliance was placed on the entries in the in am fair register and the inam statement printed in C.R.P. No. 1506 of 1943, The inam fair register is Ex. I and the inam statement is Ex. I-a. Mr. Satyanarayana Rao referred to the fact that, besides giving the total extent comprised in the mokhasa grant, the inam register specifies the several numbers of the fields also which is consistent only with the theory that the villages, Chilakapadu and Muppa-varam, in their entirety, were not treated as the subject of the mokhasa grant but only some fields in those villages. He further referred to the fact that the numbers of the fields were not consecutive and some numbers like 12, 13, 18, 28, 32, 33, etc., in Chilakapadu and numbers 4, 6, 20, 28, 37, 38, etc., in Muppavaram were omitted. Such an inference, viz., what was granted is not the entire village of Chilakapadu or Muppavaram but only certain fields in those villages--does not appear to me to be warranted by the entries. The register and the statement speak of the villages as mokhasa and the boundaries given indicate that the grant comprised the villages themselves. It was necessary for those who prepared the inam register to specify the extents and the fields for the purpose of arriving at the cist or jodi that had to be paid as it was then believed that these mokhasas were excluded from the assets of the zamindari at the time of the permanent sett