SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL REPRESENTED BY THE COLLECTOR OF TINNEVELLY Vs. RSSNARAYANA AIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These cross-appeals arise out of the same suit and they may be dealt with together. The suit was instituted by the Secretary of State against the Sri Vyasaraya Swami Mutt (2nd defendant) which through its lessee the 1 defendant was in possession of the inam village of Vagaikulam in the Tinnevelly District. The lands in this village are irrigated by an artificial channel known as the "North Kodai-melalagiankal" taking off from the Tambaraparni River. After flowing through a number of ayan villages and inam villages, this channel, at its tenth mile, enters the vagaikulam village and after flowing through that village for three quarters of a mile it enters the Government village of Mannarkoil and finally empties itself into certain ayan tanks. There have been prior litigations between the parties as to the extent of the rights possessed by the Mutt to take water from this channel. But this litigation is of a somewhat different character.

(2.) Council The piaint aneged that on the 9 and 10 of June. 1926 the 1 defendant deepened the bed of the channel to a depth of one foot three inches to a distance of about 680 feet between the points marked B and C in the plan, Ex. A. It also alleged that he widened the channel by cutting and removing a number of stones which composed the rocky bed of the channel and served to keep the water-course within narrow limits. The plaintiff complained that as the result of these acts of the 1 defendant, the flow of water into channels taking off from this channel and irrigating ayan lands was greatly retarded and diminished and that a larger volume of water flowed into the branch channel irrigating the defendants inam lands. The plaint accordingly prayed for a preventive injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with the N.K. channel and for a mandatory injunction directing the defendants to restore the channel bed to the condition ? in which it was prior to June, 1926, when the defendants made ? the alterations complained of. The right to relief was based on three grounds, namely (1) injury to the irrigation of ayan lands, (2) ownership of the channel being in the Government, and (3) the paramount authority of the Government to control the channel from its commencement to its end.

(3.) The written statement denied the allegations of fact as well as the propositions of law put forward in the plaint. Six issues were framed in the case, of which it is sufficient to refer to issues 1, 2, 4 and 5. The first issue raised the question of the ownership of that portion of the N.K. channel which lies within the inam limits. The second issue related to the plaintiff's claim of paramount right. The fourth and fifth issues related to the allegations of fact in the plaint as to the deepening and the widening of the channel by the 1 defendant and the consequent interference with the flow of water. The sixth issue was merely consequential, namely, whether the plaintiff was entitled to the injunctions claimed.