GAJUWAKA GRAM PANCHAYAT Vs. M V SURYANARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant in the suit viz., Gajuwada Gram Panchayat, represented by the Executive Officer, Gram Panchayat, Gajuwaka, is the appellant before us. The suit was brought by the respondents claiming to have succeeded to the suit property on the strength of a will executed by their father who, they claim, purchased the property by two registered sale deeds dated 7-4-1964 and 15-7-1968 from one A. V. Bhanoji Rao. It is their case that though the land was being enjoyed peacefully after the purchase, yet the Grampanchayat was creating interference and obstructions to their possession and it has occupied the land for which they filed the suit for eviction and delivery of vacant possession of the land i.e., Survey No.72/5 in Gajuwaka village corresponding to old Survey Nos. 58 and 59 measuring to an extent of Acs.2-79 cents. The suit was contested by the Gram Panchayat claiming the land to be inam land determined to be so under the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Inams (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (Act XXXVII of 1956) (hereinafter referred to as 'Inam Abolition Act') and to have vested free of all encumbrances in the State Government. The Collector had granted the Gram Panchayat permission to construct office buildings on the land by proceedings R. Dis.No.137/79 dated 6-1-1979. It denied for the respondents to have any title or interest with the property. The suit was decreed by the learned trial Court which was confirmed in appeal by the learned Single Judge of this Court. In the appeal the findings were reached that the land in question was not an inam land under the Inam Abolition Act; that it was a Mokhasa land which is estate under the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari Act, 1948 (XXVI of 1948) (hereinafter referred to as The Estates Abolition Act'). The other findings reached were that even if the land is treated as tank-bed or local fund tank, yet it does not get vested under the Inam Abolition Act since the provision of suo motu vesting of such land in the State Government was provided in Section 2-A of the Inam Abolition Act which came into force only in June, 1975 by the Amending Act 20 of 1975 which had no retrospective effect. The land in question having been sold to the father of the plaintiffs-respondents much prior to that, no vesting took place in respect of the lands. A further conclusion was also reached that long before Section 2-A of the Inam Abolition Act came into force, the land had ceased to be a poramboke or tank-bed.

(2.) The learned Counsel for the appellant has assailed before us the judgments contend ing firstly that the finding that the land was estate under the Estates Abolition Act was reached beyond the pleadings of the parties as it was not the case of either of the parties; secondly that the land, being inam land, had vested free of all encumbrances in the State Government and the District Collector, being the authorised person to permit the Gram Panchayat to construct upon the land, the non-impleading of the State Government as party to the suit makes the suit had for non-joinder of necessary party; thirdly that the civil Court has no jurisdiction to decide the nature or tenure of the land as it is inam land, the question is solely entrusted to the Tahsildar under the Inams Abolition Act; fourthly that the plaintiffs had not obtained ryotwari patta either under the Inams Abolition Act or under the Estates Abolition Act and lastly that the matter should be remanded to the trial Court for proper determination as to whether the land is inam land or not.

(3.) So far as the first submission is concerned, it has no force as the respondents had come with the suit claiming the title to the land in them and seeking recovery of possession. It was not necessary for them to have pleaded the land as inam land or as estate under the Estates Abolition Act. It is not their case that the land being estate under the Estates Abolition Act, had got vested in the State and that they obtained ryotwari patta in respect of the land. It was only the appellant who raised the question of the land being inam under the Inams Abolition Act, to have been determined as such and to have vested in the State. It was hence for them to establish such fact and the learned Single judge has, while considering such question raised, answered the same denying the land to be inam and instead held it to be estate as per the evidence on record. For the purpose, he took into consideration the description of the land in the sale deeds Exs.A-1 and A-2 registered respectively in the years 1964 and 1968 wherein the lands had been described as Mokhasa lands. The trial Court also had looked in to, while reaching the conclusion, a photostat copy of the order of the Special Tahsildar where Gajuwaka was described as Mokhasa village of A.V. Bhanoji Rao, the vendor of the land. Strictly speaking, the photostat copy could not have been looked into for the purpose as it had not been admitted into evidence. But there was ample evidence otherwise on the legal position as was discussed by the learned Single Judge to reach the conclusion.The learned Judge considered the fact that under the very definition of 'inam' under the Inams Abolition Act, any land which was estate under the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908 was excluded from being inam and that a Mokhasa land, which was explained as jagir land in the Commentary of Sundararaja Ayyangar's Text Book on Land Tenure in the Madras Presidency, was excluded from the purview of the Inams Abolition Act.