MEDAI DELAVOI THIRUMALAYAPPA Vs. KARUPPAYI AMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(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 defendant's 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.