MATTOOL PANCHAYAT Vs. ABDURAHIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant Panchayat represented by its Executive Officer, is the appellant in this Second Appeal. The suit is for a permanent injunction restraining the Panchayat from evicting the plaintiffs from the suit property. The suit property is 7.83 acres in R. S. No. 359/1A of Mattool Village. There is a specific averment in the plaint that the properties described in Schedules A and B form a portion of a vast area of munambu poramboke the total extent of which is 423.35 acres in the same survey number. This averment in the plaint is not denied in the written statement According to the plaintiffs 7.17 acres of land described in the A schedule and 66 cents of land mentioned in the B schedule in Sy. No.359/1A form part of a larger area of Government poramboke which had been in the possession of the plaintiffs and their predecessors for over 100 years under a cowl granted by the Government of Madras. The suit is occasioned on account of a threat by the Panchayat to dispossess the petitioners on the basis that the land vests in the Panchayat. The defendant panchayat has filed a written statement contending that the land mentioned in the plaint vests in the Panchayat by virtue of S.82 of the Kerala Panchayats Act and the Panchayat is entitled to evict the plaintiffs from the suit property in their occupation.

(2.) Both the courts below have concurrently found that the plaintiffs are in possession of the land in question. It is also found that the defendant Panchayat has no title to evict the plaintiffs who are found to be in occupation of the land. It is against this that the Panchayat has come up in Second Appeal.

(3.) The learned Counsel for the appellant Sri. Govinda Bharathan points out that the land in question is a river-poramboke which would vest in the Panchayat by virtue of the provisions of S.82 of the Kerala Panchayats Act. S.82 reads as follows: