GOVINDARAJA VANNIAR Vs. THIRUSANGU VANNIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Defendants 1, 2 and 4 to 7 are the appellants herein. The suit is for delivering possession of the suit properties and also for directing the defendants to pay the damages claimed in the suit and also the profits claimed including that of the future profits from the date of plaint till delivery of the suit properties.

(2.) The case of the plaintiffs is that one Amalorpava. Nadar sold the suit properties to the plaintiffs by three sale deeds dated 13.8.1974. By virtue of the said sale deeds, the plaintiffs have become the owners of the suit properties together with all the trees, superstructures and other appurtenances. The properties were tope on ground overgrown with fruit bearing trees and other trees like casuarina, coconut, mango, jack, palmyrah and other trees. The owners of the suit properties have been using the properties by leasing out the usufructs and there has been a watchman shed in the suit properties. One Kaveri Ammal and Packiri Vanniar were constituted as lessees of the trees in the suit lands and they were using the property by periodically paying the cash rent. The predecessors-in-interest of defendants 2 to 7 filed O.S.No.266 of 1964 against the owner Amalorpava Nadar and another seeking the relief of permanent injunction. This Amalorpava Nadar is the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiffs. The suit for injunction (O.S.No.266 of 1964) was decreed in favour of the defendants herein and the appeal and the second appeal therefrom also went against Amalorpava Nadar. It is only subsequent to these proceedings, the plaintiffs herein became the owners of the suit properties. After the purchase, the plaintiffs wanted to improve the lands and they found the defendants committing acts of waste and cutting the branches of several fruit bearing and yielding trees and destroying the bamboo trees. They were also committing acts of waste by their various deeds. Before filing a comprehensive suit against the defendants, the plaintiffs, as a precautionary measure, filed O.S.No.314 of 1975 on the file of the District Munsif, Thiruvayyaru restraining the defendants from cutting the trees and committing acts of- waste. According to the plaintiffs, the defendants are lessees for the collection of the usufructs and they are not entitled to the benefits of Act 25 of 1955. Regarding S.A.No.63 of 1977, Amalorpava Nadar v. Govindaraja Vanniar and 2 others, the plaintiffs have stated, that the said Second Appeal was disposed of only on the question of possession and the question as to whether the defendants are entitled to the protection under the Cultivating Tenants Protection Act or not was not necessary to be gone into for the purpose ‘of giving the relief of injunction. According to the plaintiffs, the right enjoyed by the defendants at best can only be a licence to enter the land for the purpose of gathering the usufructs of the trees and even that licence has been revoked subsequently. It is the further case of the plaintiffs, that since the defendants have put forward title in themselves to the trees standing on the disputed lands, it clearly constitutes denial of landlord’s title on their part, which incus forfeiture of tenancy right even if they are entitled to any. With the above-said allegations, the plaintiffs have come forward with the present suit for possession.

(3.) The defendants have inter alia pleaded that they are the cultivating tenants entitled to the benefits of Tamil Nadu Act 25 of 1955, that they cannot be evicted from the suit lands, that it is only the Revenue Court that has got jurisdiction under section 3(4) of the Tamil Nadu Act 25 of 1955 to decide the question of eviction and that the suit has to be dismissed as not maintainable in the Civil Court. It is further contended by the defendants that plantain and vegetables were raised in the interspace and that the suit lands are agricultural lands, which include horticultural lands also. After referring to the proceedings in O.S.No.314 of 1975 and also the injunction suit filed by the plaintiffs, the defendants prayed for the dismissal of the suit with exemplary costs.