The judgment established the principles of riparian rights, customary easements, and the reasonableness of usage based on custom and long user.

1. Appellants are the lessees of the zamindari of Sivaganga in the district of Madura and respondents are the prior lessees of a village in that zamindari called Surakudi. There is a river called Palar, which rises in the Karandamalai hills in the district and runs, first, through a number of Government villages and feeds the tanks situated therein. It then enters the zamindari and, after feeding a number of tanks through supply-channels, empties itself into the tank of the Tirupatore village.

2. Appellants represent the villages which depend for their irrigation on the Tirupatore tank, and respondents represent the Surakudi village. In November 1888, respondents put up a sand dam across the river, 94 yards in length, 1 yard in width, and f yard in height at the spot E in the plan, and thereby diverted all the water flowing down the river Palar into their supply-channel C, diminishing thereby the quantity which would otherwise be available for the Tirupatore tank.

3. Hence this litigation. The appellants case is that respondents have no right to put up a sand dam across the river, that they are entitled to take into their channel 0 only so much water as naturally flows into it from the river, and that there is a masonry calingula at the head of the channel G to regulate the supply from the river.

4. Appellants prayed in their plaint that respondents might be directed to remove the sand dam at their own cost, and further to pay to plaintiffs Rs. 1,143, with interest thereon, as compensation for the loss sustained by them in fasli 1298 and subsequent mesne profits.

5. For respondents it is contended (i) that they have a right to put up the sand dam in question, and that such right is their natural right; they urge further (ii) that it is customary for owners of channels supplied by the river Palar and other rivers in the district to put up dams whenever the rivers run low and to divert the water into their channels; (iii) that, otherwise, no water will flow into those channels; (iv) that they used to put up such dams across the river Palar for more than twenty years and divert the water into their channel; (v) that the dimensions of the dam are not correctly stated in the plaint, and (vi) that appellants have sustained no damage as alleged.

6. Six issues were tried in this case, the first three as to the right to put up the dam at Eain the plan and to divert the river water into channel C, the fourth relating to the dimensions of the dam, and the fifth and sixth referring to the damages alleged to have been sustained by appellants.

7. The District Munsif considered that, as lower riparian owners, appellants had the natural right to the flow of the stream from the Palar into the Tirupatore tank without diminution, and that respondents had no right by custom or prescription to throw up a dam at E and divert the water into channel C when the river was low. He found that the damages sustained by appellants amounted to Rs. 150 and accordingly decreed payment of that amount by respondents. He also directed respondents to remove the dam.

8. Respondents appealed from this decision. On appeal the Subordinate Judge came to the conclusion that by custom and user as of right for more than twenty years, respondents had acquired a right to put up a dam of the kind mentioned in the plaint, and, reversing the decree of the District Munsif, dismissed appellants suit with costs.

9. From this decree appellants (plaintiffs)have preferred this second appeal

10. The first objection taken to the decree of the lower Appellate Court is that the Subordinate Judge has virtually re-settled the issues and has omitted to come to a finding on the first issue. That issue raises the question whether the river Palar empties itself into the Tirupatore tank and whether plaintiffs have a right to the uninterrupted flow of the water of the said river into their tank. Referring to the undisputed fact that the river falls into the Tirupatore tank and flows over lands i