SELVARAJ Vs. NATARAJAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff in OS No.380 of 2005 who succeeded in getting a decree for declaration and injunction before the Trial Court, upon its reversal by the Lower Appellate Court, has come up with this Second Appeal.

(2.) The case of the plaintiff before the Trial Court was that the suit property is in enjoyment of the family of the plaintiff since 1935 onwards. The Plaintiff's father Arunachalam was rendering service of poojari in the temples in and around Kattupringiyam which is his native place. The elders of Walajanagaram Village, invited him to perform poojas at the Marriyamman Temple situate therein, when the plaintiff's father was about 13 years old. Accepting the request, the plaintiff's father was doing Poojari service to the Marriyamman temple. The temple does not possess any landed property. The suit property measuring about 0.38.5 hectors was gifted by the then Zamindar to the plaintiff's father and the plaintiff's father was in possession of the property and was performing Poojas in the Marriyamman Temple. When the village was notified under the Tamil Nadu Minor Inams (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 30 of 1963, notice was issued to the plaintiff's father and after enquiry, Ryotwari Patta was also granted. Upon grant of the Ryotwari patta, Revenue records were mutated in the name of the plaintiff's father and the regular Revenue patta was also issued to him.

(3.) Even during the life-time of the plaintiff's father, the defendants, particularly, the defendants 1 and 2 attempted to interfere with his possession, which resulted in the plaintiff's father lodging a police complaint before the Superintendent of Police. The plaintiff's father eventually died in the year 2003. The plaintiff filed a suit in OS No.173 of 2001 for permanent injunction. Mistakenly, a plea was taken in the said suit to the effect that the property ancestrally belonged to the plaintiff and his family.