A. SOMASUNDARAM SERVAI AND ANR. Vs. THE STATE OF MADRAS, REPRESENTED BY THE COLLECTOR OF RAMANATHAPURAM AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Plaintiffs are the Appellants in the second appeal. The suit was brought by the two Plaintiffs as representatives of the Merchants' Association at Tiruppattur for a declaration of the title of the Association to a particular site which lies west of a tank called Alamarathu Oorani in Tiruppattur, Ramanathapuram district. The case of the Plaintiffs is that the tank itself was dug by the members of the Association for providing drinking water to Tiruppattur and that the site was acquired to serve as catchments area for the said tank. Tiruppattur was an estate within the meaning of the Estates Land Act, 1908 and has been taken over by the Government under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (XXVI of 1948). The suit was instituted after the estate was so taken over. The Government proceeded to construct some quarters in a portion of the suit site for the police department. It was thereupon that the suit, out of which this appeal arises was brought by the Plaintiffs for a declaration of the title of the Association to the suit site and for an injunction restraining the Government the first Defendant in the suit, and the contractor, engaged by the Government for the construction of the police quarters, the second Defendant, from interfering with the possession of the suit site which is with the Plaintiffs.

(2.) The Government resisted the suit contending that the Alamarathu Oorani was not the property of the trust mentioned in the plaint but was always registered as Oorani poramboke in the Estate's accounts, that the suit site had always been registered as part of the Oorani poramboke and that the fencing put up on the site by the Plaintiffs was a recent creation. They further contended that by virtue of Sec. 3 of the Abolition Act, 1948, whatever rights the Plaintiffs might have had, assuming that they had any, were abolished and vested in the Government, that the Plaintiffs must have recourse to the machinery provided in the Act for establishing their rights, if any, for instance by getting a ryotwari patta by applying under, Sec. 11 of the Act, that the civil Court would have no jurisdiction to maintain such a suit, that actually the Plaintiffs applied for a patta to the Settlement Officer which was negative, and that that order had become final.

(3.) The learned District Munsif, who tried the suit, held on the question of fact that the Plaintiffs had not made out their case that there was any Association of Trust claimed by the Plaintiffs, or that Alamarathu Oorani belonged, to such trust or that the suit was the catchments area of the Oorani and belonged to the trust. On the question of jurisdiction also, he upheld the defence. In the result, he dismissed the suit.