POGARU RAMAMURTI Vs. SRI RAJAH MIRJA SRI PUSHAVATI ALAKA NARAYANA GAJAPATIRAJU MAHARAJU MANYA SULTAN BAHADUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been referred to me because of a difference of opinion between the learned Judges of the Bench who heard it. The suit is one of ejectment , the plaintiff claiming to be the Government mirasi karnam of Laveru Village within the ambit of Vizianagram estate. This appeal is concerned with his plaint prayer to eject the defendants from a land Survey No. 339 on the ground that he is the mirasi Inamdar. The 1 defendant is the Zamindar and claims the melwaram right over the land, the other defendants claim to be the kudivaram tenants thereof.

(2.) The village was surveyed by Government in 1904 in the course of the survey of the Vizianagram estate under Act IV of 1897 and the suit land was then demarcated by the Survey Officer as mirasi Inam. Against this decision the 1 defendant's representative presented under Section 12 an appeal that the land should have been classed as jeroyati. That appeal was thrown out. The estate did not file any suit under Section 13 to have that decision set aside. Under that section of the Act the decision therefore became conclusive between the parties to the dispute as regards all matters in dispute. The main point contested throughout in this case has been whether the decision of the Survey Officer precludes the defendants from resisting the plaintiff's claim. It was decided by the Trial Court and that decision has not been since contested that the order of the Survey Officer does not bind the tenant defendants 2 to 12 as they were not parties to the appeal before the Survey Officer. As regards the 1st defendant, the Zamindar, both the Lower Courts held that he was precluded by the decision of the Survey Officer from resisting the plaintiff's claim and they therefore gave a decree that the plaintiff was entitled to the melwaram right over Survey No. 339. In second appeal Mr. Justice Spencer held that the Survey Officer's decision was without jurisdiction and therefore void, and on the ground that the plaintiff had not independently established his title he dismissed the plaintiff's suit. At the Letters Patent Appeal the learned Judges differed on this main point and it is the chief question which I have to decide.

(3.) One would imagine that as it is the point on which the case really turned all available records in the survey proceeding would have been produced and exhibited. So far from that being so, the original proceedings of the Survey Officer are not filed nor is the entry in the Survey Register. We have only, the decision on appeal, Exhibit G, the grounds of that decision, Exhibit XXIII and the appeal petition of the Zamindar, Exhibit XXIII-A, and these are by no means consistent. For example, Exhibit XXIII-A does not show that Government was a party to the enquiry, while Exhibit XXIII says that Government was a party. Again Exhibit XXIII-A says that the original decision was that the land was "subsequent," that is, post-settlement service Inam, while Exhibit XXIII says the original decision was that it was a mirasi Inam by which the Survey Officer on appeal, as he states clearly in his grounds, means Government service Inam, that is, pre-settlement Inam. It seems to be now admitted by the plaintiff that the Inam was really post-settlement but that error of fact on the part of the Survey Officer cannot affect the validity of his decision if he had jurisdiction to pass it.