B NAGA REDDY Vs. MATTAM PARVATAIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal is from the Judgment of a Learned Single Judge of this Court in A.S. No.769 of 1978 allowing in part the appeal of the plaintiffs - protected tenants and granting declaration of their title in respect of the plaint schedule property and possession thereof with a further direction for enquiry into profits from the year 1969-70. The suit was laid by the respondents-plaintiffs seeking declaration of title in respect of the plaint schedule property, recovery of possession, declaration of their right to irrigate the lands with water from me two sources named therein, a consequential permanent injunction restraining the defendants from causing obstruction to the enjoyment of the irrigation channels of the two sources of irrigation in respect of the suit lands, a mandatory injunction to restore the irrigation channel that was destroyed by the defendants and to restore to its original condition and for recovery of profits, both past and future.

(2.) In the plaint, it was averred that the plaintiffs are brothers and protected tenants in respect of the plaint schedule property which formed part of a larger extent of Ac.62-03 guntas and that defendant No.1, who was the owner of the property agreed to sell the same to them and after he received the sale consideration, the authorities under the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 (for short "the Tenancy Act") issued sale certificates under Section 38(6) of the Tenancy Act dt.31-9-1961 but in the month of March, 1968, defendants 1 to 3, with the help of the other defendants, forcibly took possession of their property and deprived them of their possession. Resisting the suit, the defendants-inamdars denied the claim of the plaintiffs that they were the protected tenants and asserted that they were not in possession of the property and that the certificate proceedings were vitiated by fraud. It was also pleaded by them that without the prior sanction of the Government no sale certificate could be issued and, therefore, the sale certificates allegedly claimed to have been issued were invalid.

(3.) The trial Court framed the relevant issues on the pleadings and after considering the evidence held that theplaintiffs were not entitled to possession of the suit lands, they had no title or possession and they could not establish the true source of irrigation mentioned in the plaint. Although no separate issue was framed concerning the validity of the sale certificates, Exs.A-9 and A-10 issued under Section 38(6) of the Tenancy Act, the trial Court held that inasmuch as the plaintiffs failed to prove that they were the protected tenants, no title had passed to them under the certificates. A further finding also was recorded that the certificates were invalid due to absence of prior sanction of the Government as contemplated by the Act.