V ADINARAYANA Vs. PRAMUDU ALIAS RAMASWAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the plaintiff asked for a declaration of his right to take water through a channel for the cultivation of certain land belonging to him and for an injunction restraining the defendants from obstructing the course of the channel. The lands both of the plaintiff and defendants are situated in a proprietary estate. According to the plaintiff a river channel supplied the means of irrigation for the lands of the parties and other ryots who had lands alongside the stream. A branch leading from the main channel passed through the lands of the defendants Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and then the fourth defendant s, land and, according to the plaintiff, afterwards reached his own land. Defendants Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are alleged to have blocked up the channel at a point higher than the fourth defendant s land. They contended that the channel never irrigated the lands either of the fourth defendant or of the plaintiff, and that it stopped somewhere near their own lands. The fourth defendant did not contest the suit.

(2.) The facts found by the Lower Appellate Court, as we understand the judgment of the District Judge, are:--that the channel in question continued, as a definite water-course, up to the fourth defendant s lands, and that the water of the channel flowed over the bands of the fourth defendant s fields and joined another channel which irrigated the plaintiff s lands.

(3.) The District Munsif held that the plaintiff was entitled to the flow of the channel water along the fourth defendant s lands to the channel which was the direct source of irrigation for his land, and that the contesting defendants were not entitled to interfere with the flow. On appeal the District Judge held that, as the water of the stream did not flow direct to the plain tiff s land in aT1y defined course, it must he taken that it was not intended-to supply water to the plaintiff s land. He regarded the water as it flowed from the fourth defendant s land over his bunds as mere surface drainage and was of opinion that the plaintiff could not claim any legal right to it. He, consequently, dismissed the plaintiff s suit.