MUDDADA CHAVANNNA Vs. KODANDRAMA SWAMI VARU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a dispute relating to the claim made by the respondent to recover rent in respect of an area measuring 45-00 acres of Inam land in Chodavaram village in Urlam Zamindari now in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The land belonged to two deities--Sri Kodandarama Swami Varu and Bala Sasisekhara Swami Varu. One Venugopalarao was a tenant of the land in 1945. Muddada Chavanna--hereinafter called the appellant offered to pay higher rent and executed on December 28, 1946, a lease deed for the area of the land, for a period of five years commencing from the cultivating season of 1946. The appellant could not be put in possession because Venugopalarao and his sub-tenants declined to vacate and deliver possession of the land. Suit No. 220 of 1947 was then filed by the deities and the appellant in the Court of the District Munsif, Srikakulam, for a decree in ejectment against Venugopalarao and his sub-tenants. The suit was resisted on the plea that the lands demised were not personal Inam lands of the deities, bat were Darmila (post settlement) Inam lands in which the defendants as tenants held occupancy rights, and the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit. The deities and the appellant contended that the lands were pre-settlement Inam lands The tenants filed an additional written statement contending that the suit lands were not pre-settlement personal Inam and being lands situated in the Zamindari Jerovati village within the proprietary estate of Urlam and Devidi in actual physical possession in specified plots of lands from times immemorial, they had in law rights of occupancy tenants under the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, and could not be evicted therefrom. The District Munsif raised two preliminary issues (1) "whether the suit lands were Darmila Inam lands or personal Inam lands and whether the tenants held occupancy rights in them", and (2) "whether the civil court had jurisdiction to try the suit. The District Munsif held that the lands were Darmila Inam lands and the tenants held occupancy rights in those lands, and the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit in ejectment in respect of those lands. "

(2.) In appeal against the decree, the Subordinate Judge held that the tenants failed to establish that the lands were Darmila Inam lands, or that the tenants had acquired occupancy rights therein, and that the Civil Court had jurisdiction to try the suit. Accordingly he remanded the suit for further trial according to law.

(3.) Against the judgment of the Subordinate Judge, the tenants moved a revision application in the High Court of Madras. Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J., by order dated August 2, 1951, confirmed the order passed by the Subordinate Judge. The learned Judge held that the tenants failed to discharge the burden of proving that the lands in their occupation were post-settlement Inam lands.