TALLAPRAGADA SADASIVARAYUDU Vs. CHOPPARA VENKATASWAMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the year 1839 a village called Atchampalem was granted by the Zamindar of Nuzvid to the ancestors of the first three defendants. They were to pay a kist of Rs. 34 a year and to maintain fifteen peons to watch the frontier bordering on the Nizam's territory. The 8 and 6 defendants were admitted as tenants by the Inamdars some time before 1913. In 1918 the Zamindar resumed the grant as the service was not being performed and issued an ordinary ryoti puttah to the first three defendants. In 1920 the plaintiff, who was admittedly aware of the resumption, took a conveyance of their interest from the 5 and 6 defendants and, as a result, claims to have a right of permanent occupancy in the suit village.

(2.) The Lower Appellate Court found that the grant was one made in lieu of wages and therefore resumable. It also found that the first three defendants were landholders within the meaning of the Estates Land Act and that the village was an estate, also within the meaning of that Act. These findings we see no reason to reject. Substantially the question for decision is whether the 5 and 6th defendants acquired, by virtue of the Act, a right of permanent occupancy in the village. It is beyond question that the village was granted on service tenure and at a favourable rate of rent. It was therefore excluded from the category of ryoti land as defined. in Section 3(16) of the Act, until the Zamindar resumed the grant in 1918. It follows that the first three defendants could not acquire any right of permanent occupancy in it as against their grantor. The contention on behalf of the appellant is that his vendors could, under the Act, acquire such a right as against the grantees, who let them into possession--in other words, that land which cannot be ryoti land as between the grantor and the service tenure-holder can become ryoti land as between the latter and his tenants. We can find no justification in the Act for such a contention. Land which is expressly excluded from the category of ryoti land for one purpose and is not expressly included in it for any other, can hardly be held to be ryoti land merely by implication. If the object of the Act is to prevent the holder of a service tenure from acquiring a right of occupancy against his grantor, it would be defeated by allowing his tenants to acquire such a right not merely against him, but also against his grantor. No authority has been cited which lays down anything of the sort, although some observations in Veerasami Mudali V/s. Palaniappan (1923) 46 M.L.J. 515 are relied on. Assuming that that decision does lay down that a tenant can acquire an occupancy right against the holder of a service tenure, it does not go to the length of saying that that right is effective as against the original grantor of the tenure. It seems obvious that, in the case of a resumable grant--like the present--any right a tenant may have acquired against the grantee, must come to an end on resumption by the grantor--see Subramania Aiyar V/s. Onnappa Goundan (1923) 39 M.L.J. 629. That was, it is true, not a case under the Estates Land Act, but the principle would seem to apply here.

(3.) The appeal therefore fails. The appellant seeks to raise other questions-- whether the grant was of the land or of the melvaram, and whether the land can be described as "old waste". These are new points which we decline to consider at this stagfe. It is also argued that the 5 and 6 defendants acquired an occupancy right by custom and outside the Act. That is a contention we agree with the Lower Appellate Court in rejecting. The appeal is dismissed with costs.