CHILUKULA SANJEEVAPPA Vs. KUMMATHI ANJANAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal has been referred to a Division Bench by one of us (Venkatesam, J).

(2.) The plaintiff, who is the 1st respondent herein, filed a suit for the following reliefs : (1) Declaration of his right to let out water from the bath room of his house described in the schedule attached to the plaint through the sluice of the bath room into the open space south of the house ; (2) A mandatory injunction directing the defendants to remove the obstruction caused by them to the sluice and put up a new slab at the place where there was an old slab as it was damaged on account of their obstruction ; and (3) A permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with his right to let out water from the bath room to the sluice into the open space south of the house. The 1st respondent-plaintiff is the owner of the plaint schedule house situated in Nakkalapalli village in Kalyandurg taluk, Anantapur District. There is a bath room in the house in the southern portion. To the south of the house is a vacant site. The defendants are the owners of the houses situate on the southern side of the vacant site. The case of the plaintiff is that he and his ancestors have been using the bath room from times immemorial, that the house was constructed over 100 years back, that the open space adjacent to the wall does not belong to the defendants and that he and his ancestors had acquired a prescriptive right to discharge water from the bath room into the open space. (2a) The defendants denied the plaint allegation that the sluice had been in existence from times immemorial and that the plaintiff and his ancestors had been exercising the right to let out water and that right was perfected by prescription. They claimed that they were the owners of the open space to the south of the plaintiffs house.

(3.) The learned Dist. Munsif held that the plaintiff has acquired a prescriptive right to discharge water from the bath room of his house and that the open space to the south of the plaintiffs house does not belong to the defendants. On these findings, the trial court granted a decree as prayed for except with respect to the prayer for a mandatory injunction directing the defendants to replace a new slab.