The judgment emphasizes the importance of evidence in proving the nature of an inam and highlights that the existence of tenants with occupancy rights much later on does not assist in proving that a village is an estate under the Madras Estates Land Act.

Wallace, J.

1. The point for decision in these civil revision petitions is whether the village of Yellainaikanpatti of which the petitioner is an inamdar, has been shown to be an estate under the Madras Estates Land Act. This is a mixed question of fact and law.

2. The plaintiffs are tenants of the village and sued in the Revenue Court of the Sub-Collector of Tuticorin for pattas on the footing that they possess occupancy rights. That Court held that the village was. not an estate and dismissed the suit. The District Judge on appeal held that "the village is an estate, and remanded the suits for hearing on the other issues. The defendant comes up in revision. His main contention is that the District Judge has not rightly understood the law on the matter, and has passed his judgment not on the evidence, but on unfounded surmises of his own.

3. The onus of showing that they are entitled to bring suits in the special Revenue Court lies undoubtedly on the plaintiffs. Both the lower Courts have found that the oral evidence is of practically no use in deciding the present point; and the only documents that have been relied upon before me on the one side or the other are Exs. UU, an Olagu ayacut account of 1803, and Ex. 49, an inam register of 1865. These are the only early documents which are available to show what was the nature of the inam. The original grant is not available. From Ex. 49, Col. 15 it appears that the inam was granted in 1775 for " populating the village." The natural inference from that entry is that the village was then direlict or waste, and that is the defendants contention. Plaintiffs contend that the fact that the Olagu account, Ex. UU, mentions tenants, is evidence that there probably were tenants also in 1775. I am clear that no such inference can be drawn. The more reasonable inference is that the populating of the village for which the inam was granted in 1775, had been in some measure successful by 1803. The entry in Col. 8, Ex. 49, description of inam," is for subsistence as charity. This does not carry the case any further, converting waste land into arable land might without any stretch of language be termed charity. No other form of charity has been suggested by the plaintiffs.

4. Finally the plaintiffs rely on the description of the village in Ex. 49 as a kattukuthagai village. The District Judge concludes from that term that the inamdar in 1775 was a renter or farmer of the melwaram right from Government, failing to see that such a conclusion puts the plaintiffs out of Court, for if the inamdar was merely renting or farming the melwaram, then there was no grant of the melwaram at all, and therefore the inam is not an "estate." Now Wilsons Glossary definition of kattukuthagai is " land held on farm at a permanently fixed money rent which is usually light." The Tinnevelly Gazetteer defines it as a form of lease in which a fixed rental is paid in money or in kind. The other authorities quoted in para. 42 of the District Judges judgment do not alter the essential nature of the term. But when the District Judge concludes from them, that the kattukuthagai was a renter of the melwaram, I am quite unable to follow him. The kattukuthagai was in essence a lease or grant of land at a favourable rent.

5. The use of this term in the inam register only makes the plaintiffs case worse, since it implies that the village lands were handed over to the original inamdar at a favourable rent. There is nothing in the term itself from which one is entitled to infer, that what was handed over was only the melwaram, and if the village was, as I am inclined to hold, waste at the time of the grant, there would be no melwaram to hand over. I think, so far as one can infer anything from the very meagre records, the correct inference is that the village as a whole was handed over to the inamdar at a favourable rent in order that it might attract cultivators and tenants, and that there was no grant of the melwaram only. Plai