The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of Sections 15, 26, and 27 of the Indian Easements Act, V of 1882, in the context of acquiring prescriptive rights and the manner of enjoyment necessary to establish such rights.

Sadasiva Aiyar, J.

1. The 1st defendant is the appellant. The suit was brought claiming the following reliefs:

(1) The establishment of the plaintiffs right of way, marked A-B in the plaint plan, through the land of the defendant on to the plaintiffs land:

(2) For an injunction to the defendants to remove the fence which they put up across the path about 10 months before the suit:

(3) For the issuing of a permanent injunction against the defendants obstructing the path.

2. The lower Appellate Court (as I read its judgment) came to the following conclusions:

(a) The plaintiff and his predecessors-in-title to the dominant tenement, were using the plaint path for much longer than 20 years before the interruption took place in September 1910 by the act of the defendants putting up the fence. (The suit was brought in July 1911 and the evidence of the plaintiffs 2nd witness speaks to the enjoyment for 40 years).

(b) Though the 1st defendant objected to the plaintiff using the way in 1907 or 1908, the plaintiff did actually continue to enjoy the right of way till the fence was put up in September 1910. The plaintiff says in his evidence "the path was not closed" till 1910; "the pathway was closed, only five or six days prior to the filing of the suit." I think the word "suit" in this sentence is a mistake for the criminal complaint which was filed in August or September 1910. "Before that the defendants were objecting orally."

(c) The suit was not barred by the two years period of limitation prescribed by the Limitation Act as the cause of action arose only in 1910 within a year before the suit and not in 1908 or 1907, the plaintiff not having had any interruption or restriction in the enjoyment of his rights.

3. On these findings, the decree of the District Munsif in plaintiffs favour was confirmed by the lower Appellate Court. Mr. K.S. Ganesa Aiyar, Vakil for the appellant, argued.

(a) that the oral objections and disputes admittedly raised by the 1st defendant (see Exhibit III) in 1907 and 1908 prevented the plaintiff from acquiring a right of easement by prescription under Section 26, Clause 1, of Act IX of 1908;

(b) that Section 26, Clause 1, of Act IX of 1908, means (if I understood his contention aright), that a suit brought more than two years after such oral objection and dispute raised by the defendant entailed the dismissal of such a suit as barred by limitation.

4. It must be pointed out that Sections 26 and 27 of the Limitation Act are not applicable to cases arising in territories to which the Indian Easements Act, V of 1882, applies. (See Section 29, Clause 3, of the Limitation Act). The question even as regards an easement right claimed under the statutory prescription is, therefore, strictly not one of limitation as was supposed by the lower Courts and as seems to have been contended by the learned Vakil. The question when what might be called an easement by statutory prescription is claimed by a plaintiff, is whether under Section 15 of the Easements Act (which applies to the Madras Presidency), the prescriptive right by enjoyment for 20 years has been acquired by the plaintiff. As pointed out by Chamier, J., in Sultan Ahmad v. Waliullah 17 Ind. Cas. 22 : 10 A.L.J. 227: "The fifth paragraph of Section 15 of the Easements Act seems to render it impossible to acquire a statutory prescriptive title to an easement unless and until the claim thereto has been contested in a suit." See also Rajrup Koer v. Abdul Hossein 6 C. 394 (P.C.) : 7 C.L.R. 529 : 7 I.A. 249 : 4 Shome. L.R. 7 : 4 Sar. P.C.J. 199 : 3 Suth. P.C.J. 816 : 4 Ind. Jur. 530 and the judgment of Lord Macnaghten in Hyman v. Van Den Bergh (1908) 1 Ch. 167 : 77 L.J. Ch. 154 : 98 L.T. 478 construing similar provisions of the English Prescription Act. As Peacock says in his book on Easements at page 435: "The right is created upon the bringing of the first action in which, by reason of the claim having been brought into question, it becomes necessary for the person clai