SARDAR JAGJOT SINGH Vs. RANI BRIJNATH KUNWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SO far as the essential facts are concerned, the case of the appellant is clearly disclosed in the plaint. He claims a certain piece of land measuring 2058 bighas, and his theory is that this land has become his by alluvion. Yet, while the exigencies of pleading make him describe it as "new alleviated land," it is in this same plaint said to be "land of the defendant's" (respondent's) "village." The 2058 bighas have indeed a perfectly definite history, which in their Lordships' judgment entirely excludes the appellant's claim.

(2.) THE appellant is proprietor of a village called Murwa; and the respondent is proprietor of a village called Randa. In 1866, which is the commencement of both parties' rights, the river Ghogra was flowing in a course which intersected Randa, and the portion of Randa which was on the eastern bank lay between the river and Murwa. This description, which was true in 1866, is also true now. It is the fact, however, that in the interval between 1866 and 1891 the river had first departed from and then substantially resumed the course in which it now runs, so far as concerns those two properties. The appellant's case is entirely founded on this intervening but now obsolete history.

(3.) THESE being the facts, it is manifest that the case does not fall within the well-known chapter of law which treats of the formation of new land through the gradual and imperceptible washing up of particles by a river or the sea. Nor have we even to deal with the more complicated case, in which a piece of land is first disintegrated by water action and thereafter reintegrated or reformed by water action. The only note of similarity to alluvion to which the appellant could point was that the process of change was so far gradual; but this means merely that the river took several years to change its course. Now, the mere fact that a change in a river's course has placed land belonging to A. in contiguity to the lands of B. could never deprive A. of the lands and transfer them to B. And the proposition maintained by the appellant is by several steps nearer than this to paradox; for he contends that if after temporary aberrations a river at last leaves the land of A. in statu quo ante it must be held to be an accession to B., his next neighbour. It is superfluous to say that neither the statute law of India nor the general principles of jurisprudence lend the slightest support to such unreasonable conclusions.