ALAGAPPA CHETTY Vs. NACHIAPPAN ALIAS KIRUKAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These 25 petitions are for orders under Section 110 and Order 45, Rules 3 and 8 to enable the petitioners to appeal to His Majesty in Council against the 25 decrees passed by this Court in second appeals. The suits were instituted in the court of the District Munsif, who dismissed them. First appeals were allowed by the District Judge; and in the cases before us, this Court allowed the second appeals setting aside the District Judge's decrees.

(2.) The circumstances are that the plaintiff sued for possession of certain plots of land under a title to a larger extent, in which they were alleged to be included in the village of Sekkalakottai. Some of the defendants in each suit were impleaded as trespassers in actual occupation. 6 to 9 defendants, who were subsequently impleaded set up that the plots were part of their inam village of Kalanivasal and that the other defendants just referred to were holding under them. The dispute was therefore whether the suit plots were in Sekkalakottai village or Kalanivasal; that is where the boundary line between the two villages ran with reference I to the suit plots. Three questions were formulated in the judgment of Spencer, J. and were dealt with by both the learned judges. Of these three questions two are at present material; the second: Whether the Inam Commissioner's decision in 1865 is binding on the parties to this suit and decisive of the questions of title involved? and the third: Whether the decision of the Deputy Superintendent of Survey, Mr. Gompertz in 1876 was conclusive against the Zamindar and the plaintiff, who claims under him, and whether according to that decision the lands in dispute belong to Kalanivasal?

(3.) The suits were valued in the District Munsif's court with reference to Court Fees Act, Section 7(5)(d) and (e) on the market value of the land in dispute; and the aggregate value of the lands concerned in the 25 suits with which we have to deal is only Rs. 2,800. It is said that even assuming that these suits can be consolidated for the present purpose, the condition as to the value of the subject matter postulated in Section 110, C.P.C. is not complied with.