VEMANA LAKSHMAIAH NAIDU Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal against the Judgment of Sanjeeva Row Nayudu, J. under clause (15) of the Letters Patent, reversing that of the Subordinate Judge, Nellore in O.S. No. 138 of 1951. The lands in dispute, of the extent of about 22 acres, formed part of the bed of a tank in Gangavaram a whole inam village in Nellore district. These lands had been under the cultivation of the plaintiff. On an application received from the labourers of the village, the Collector passed an order, dated 5th June, 1950, which is in the following words :-

(2.) This order is purported to have been made under section 20 of the Madras Estates Land Act and section 3 of the Madras Estates Communal, Forest and Private Lands (Prohioition of Alienation) Act (XIV of 1947). It is to set aside this order that the suit giving rise to this appeal had been laid by the plaintiffs in the Subordinate Judge's Court, Nellore. The order was impugned by the plaintiffs on the objection that it was beyond the competence c f the District Collector to resort to section 20, as the lands in question had ceased to be part of the tank-bed which was abandoned several years before and that they had since been converted into ryoti lands. The chief averments in the plaint were that Gangavaram tank consisting of about 350 acres and demarcated as Block Survey No. 83 fell into disuse by reason of the lands in the villag being irrigated by Kaligiri reservoir and the tank-bed was converted into a ryoti land. The high-level tank-bed was divided by the then landholders of the village under a registered deed, dated and December, 1878 and ever since was being cultivated by the ryots of the respective landholders, only sixty acres of the low-level lands of the tank-bed having been kept joint and enjoyed in common. In the year 1915, a suit was filed by the landholders (O.S. No. 364 of 1915 on the file of the District Munsif's Court, Kavali) for division of the sixty acres. Though this was decreed, possession was not taken through Court. All the same, the landholders leased their respective shares to their ryets who brought most of the lands under cultivation. The ryots who were in enjoyment of these lands, filed O.S. No. 48 of 1942 on the file of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Nellore, for separate possession of their respective shares of sixty acres in accordance with the decree made and a decree was passed as prayed for and division was effected by a Commissioner and possession also was taken by them in 1947 pursuant to the decree. The predecessors-in-interest of some of the plaintiffs were parties to the suit and the suit lands also formed the subject-matter of that litigation.

(3.) While so, sometime in the year 1948, encouraged by the karnam of the village who was opposed to the plaintiff, some of the labourers began to give them trouble by interfering with their possession and they also presented a petition to the District Collector which culminated in the order impeached in the suit. The suit was resisted by the Government, inter alia, on the objections that Survey No. 123 was a part of Cheruvu Poramboke and was tank-bed and Aragani and was never converted into a ryoti land, that till 1950 when the Collector passed his order it retained its character as tank-bed and that the District Collector was entitled to take action under section 20 of the Estates Land Act and Act (XIV of 1947). The Subordinate Judge, while upholding the plea of the Government that the lands in question constituted tank-bed and did not cease to possess that character till the year 1950, decreed the suit being of opinion that the Collector could issue orders under section 20 of the Estates Land Act only with the consent of the landholders in cases where the reversionary rights vested in the landholders and it was lacking in this case and secondly, Act XIV of 1947 applied only to communal and forest lands and not to tank-beds and that the lands in the suit forming part of the tank-bed could not come under the definiton of communal lands as per sub-clause (b) to clause 16 of section 3 of the Madras Estates Land Act.