U C KRISHNA BHATTA Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL REPRESENTED BY THE COLLECTOR OF SCANARA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE burden is upon the plaintiff in this case to prove that the bed of the thodu is his property. THE District judge has not referred to the evidence relied upon by the District Munsif in support of his finding in the plaintiff's favor, but we have considered that evidence and are clearly of opinion that it fails to make out the plaintiff's case. Admittedly the plaintiff has no grant from the Government nor has it been shown that he pays assessment on the bed of the thodu. We do not think it proved that the channel is not a natural water-course, nor do we think the circumstances relied upon, viz., that the plaintiff happens to have lands on both sides of the thodu as his property in documents to which the Government was no party and that at a point in the thodu outside his lands there had been a slight diversion, are sufficient to establish his ownership.

(2.) THE Second Appeal is dismissed with costs.