MOKSHAGUNDAM NARASAIAH Vs. ESTATES ABOLITION TRIBUNAL CHITTOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the order made by Govinda Menon, J., in Writ Petition No. 31 of 1952 by which an appellate decision of the Estates Abolition Tribunal, Chittoor, was quashed by a certiorari and the decision of the Settlement Officer No. III, Chittoor, was restored.

(2.) The appellant is one of the shrotriemdars of the inam village of Mokshagundam in the Kurnool District and the contesting 2nd respondent is a ryot named Poli Reddi of that village. The dispute between them relates to the question whether the said village is an "inam estate" as defined in section 2, Clause (7) of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (XXVI of 1948) (hereinafter referred to as the Estates Abolition Act). The appellant's contention is that Mokshagundam is not an inam estate, while the 2nd respondent's contention is that it is. Section 2, Clause (7) of the Estates Abolition Act defines an inam estate as follows :- "Inam estate " means an estate within the meaning of section 3, Clause (2) (d), of the Estates Land Act, but does not include an inam village which became an estate by virtue of the Madras Estates Land (Third Amendment) Act, 1936."

(3.) The first part of the definition imports all inam villages coming within the meaning of section 3, clause (2) (d) of the Madras Estates Land Act, inclusive of its three Explanations) and the second part excludes such of those inam villages as come within section 3, clause (2) (d) by reason only of the changes therein introduced by the Third Amendment Act of 10,36. It is not necessary for the purpose of this appeal to canvass the several provisions of section 3, clause (2) (d), which were amended from time to time. It is sufficient to notice that it has been well settled by decisions that the said clause referred throughout only to grants in inam of whole villages and not of portions of villages ; and that grants which did not satisfy the condition that "the land revenue without the kudivaram has been granted in inam to a person not owning the kudivaram thereof" came to be included in the said clause by virtue of the Third Amendment Act of 1936. In other words, two of the conditions requisite for making an inam village an inam estate are (i) that the inam grant or confirmation thereof must have comprised the entire village and (2) that the grant must have been of the land revenue without the kudivaram and the grantee must have been a person not owning the kudivaram of the village. The dispute between the parties is whether either or both these conditions have been satisfied in the case of Mokshagundam.