JAGADAMBAL AND ORS. Vs. ANGAMMAL AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The second appeal and the writ petition have been heard together as they both relate to the character of the land which the Appellant, who is also the petitioner in the writ petition, sought to recover from the Defendants. The Petitioner entered upon the land in or about 1948 as a lessee and in 1952 or so, applied to the Deputy Collector, Thanjavur under Sec. 55 of the Estates Land Act for a patta. This proceeding is under that provision regarded as a suit. Though the claim by the Petitioner there was on the footing that he was a ryot entitled to a patta for the holding the whole controversy before the Deputy Collector centred round whether there was a forcible dispossession of the Petitioner. The Deputy Collector found that there was such dispossession, and on that view granted patta. On appeal, the District Court of Thanjavur affirmed that finding. In the course of hearing before that Court, the Defendants, who are the Respondents before this Court wanted to file an additional written statement raising a new plea that the land was a pannai or private land and not ryoti in character. The District Court considered that this plea was beyond the scope of the suit and declined leave to receive the additional written statement. In fact, it was of the view that it would still be open to the Defendants to institute a separate suit in a civil Court for a declaration that the lands were private lands. The inam village of Marungai Pinnallur Vattam, Thanjavur taluk, in which the land covered by the suit is situate, was notified in or about 1954 under the provisions of Madras Act XXVI of 1948. Thereafter the Defendants applied under Sec. 13 of that Act for grant of a patta in respect of the land. There the Assistant Settlement Officer decided that the land was pannai in character and granted patta. The plaintiff was a party to those proceedings. On appeal, the Tribunal took a similar view and affirmed the grant of patta to the Defendants It is to quash this order the writ petition has been filed.

(2.) After the proceedings under Sec. 55 of the Estates Land Act and the appeal arising there out had come to an end, the Plaintiff instituted the suit out of which the second appeal arises for possession on the ground that the land was ryoti in character. The Courts below rejected that claim, they being of the view that the decision in the proceedings arising out of the

(3.) So far as the writ petition is concerned, the Petitioner has failed to satisfy this Court that the Tribunal's order suffers from any error apparent on its face. It has not been stated that for the Petitioner that the Tribunal misdirected itself as to the tests applicable to a determination of the character of the land as pannai or ryoti. With reference to the evidence before it, and having regard to the treatment of the land throughout and the short term leases and the conduct of the Defendants and their predecessors -in -title it considered that the Assistant Settlement Officer, had arrived at the correct conclusion that the land was proved to the pannai in character. The jama -bandhi accounts of certain faslis which were filed before the Assistant Settlement Officer described the land as a private land. This land formed part of a wider extent of land measuring about five velis which once belonged to the junior Prince of Thanjavur. He sold the land in 1932 and eventually it came into the hands of the Defendants by right of purchase. There were besides the jamabhandhi accounts, lease deeds with surrender clauses. One of the witnesses examined in the proceedings under Sec. 13 deposed that the land was noted as Iruvaram in the Record of Rights Register. It is true that this expression Iruvaram may not by itself be conclusive as to the character of the land. But it is one of the factors which may legitimately be taken into account along with other circumstances. It seems to me, therefore, the Tribunal does not appear to be in error when it agreed with the Assistant Settlement Officer and held that the land was proved to be pannai. It follows that this finding will not only dispose of the writ petition but also the second appeal.