SRI MEERJA RAJA SRI POOSPATI VIJIARAMA GAJAPATHI RAJA MAHARAJ MANYA SULTAN BAHADUR OF VIZIANAGARAM Vs. COLLECTOR OF VIZAGAPATAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We think the Subordinate Judge in this case was right. The first question relates to the nature of the interest at present enjoyed by the defendants. By a deed dated the 1st June 1808 the predecessor of the present plaintiff granted a mokhasa patta to three individuals of three villages without reserving any rent.

(2.) There is no doubt and it has been so held in some cases in this court that such tenures were formerly believed to be resumable on the death of the grantor. On the death of the grantor in this case when the estate came under the management of the Collector as Manager in 1845 these villages were resumed. That is to say, the villages were attached or kept under zuft and the profits of the villages were enjoyed apparently by the Zamindar for some years. Then in the year 1853 a petition was put in Exhibit B, stating that the villages had been granted on service tenure to the ancestors of the petitioners and that the Zamindar had been pleased to release them from attachment "to be enjoyed by us nine sons of the aforesaid Vijia Gopalaraju (one of the grantees) I agree to pay a kattubadi of Rs. 300 a year newly fixed."

(3.) Then Exhibit C is an order of the Zamindar giving effect to this arrangement and Exhibit D is a further order addressed to the office Amin and it says "Inasmuch as the said villages were not formerly charged with Kattubadi and as Seetaramaraju one of the sons of Vijia Gopala Raju (that is to say, one of the original grantees), presented a sannad to us stating that nine sons of late Kakerlapudi Vijia Gopala Raja would pay the Kattubadi of Rs. 300 every year from the current fasli year 1263 and enjoy the same as before and act in obedience to the orders of the circar, the said three villages should be released from attachment and given to the nine persons of the family to be enjoyed by all the members of the said family." Now the three villages have been enjoyed for the past sixty years subject to the payment of this kattubadi without any question being raised about it and you must take it, that the tenure on which they held is that they should hold the land subject to an annual payment ot this kattubadi of Rs. 300, and that in effect there was a re-grant of the three villages in 1853.