SECY OF STATE Vs. RAMESWARAM DEVASTHANAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the concurrent judgments of a Bench of the Madras High Court modifying on second appeal, the decree of the lower Appellate Court which had dismissed the suit, and giving the plaintiff a decree for the principal relief claimed in the plaint. The question is mainly one of fact, and it is well settled that under S. 100, Civil PC, the High Court has no jurisdiction to reverse the findings of fact arrived at by the lower Appellate Court, however erroneous, unless they are vitiated by some error of law. Subsequently to the date of the judgments under appeal, the Board has had occasion to emphasise the fact that this rule is equally applicable to cases, such as this, in which the findings of the lower Appellate Court are based on inferences drawn from the documents exhibited in evidence. This question is dealt with in the third and fourth propositions laid down in the judgment delivered by Sir Binod Mitter in Wali Mohammad V/s. Mohammad Baksh, AIR 1930 PC 91 at p 92 (of 57 IA): " (3) Where the question to be decided is one of fact, it does not involve an issue of law merely because documents which were not instruments of title or otherwise the direct foundations of rights, but were really historical materials, have to be construed for the purpose of deciding the question: see Midnapur Zamindary Company V/s. Uma Charan Mandal, AIR 1923 PC 187."

(2.) In the last cited case the question the Board had to decide was the date of the origin of an under-tenure. The first Appellate Court fixed the date from the contents of some documents. No oral evidence had been called in this case. (4) A second appeal would not lie because some portion of the evidence might be contained in a document or documents, and the first Appellate Court had made a mistake as to its meaning : see Nowbut Singh V/s. Chutter Dharee Singh, (1873) 19 WR 222 (PC).

(3.) The first question therefore for their Lordships' consideration is whether in the light of this ruling the High Court had any jurisdiction to reverse the judgment of the lower Appellate Court. The Rameswaram temple in the narrow straits between India and Ceylon, which is regarded by Hindus as one of their most important shrines, is the owner of a revenue-free inam for the performance of certain services in the temple on the south bank of the Tambraparni River in the extreme south of the peninsula, known as the Sethukkuvoithan estate, and hereinafter referred to as the S. village; and the present suit was instituted by the temple trustees against defendant 1 the Secretary of State for India in Council, in respect of an order passed by Mr. Lionel Davidson, then Collector of Tinnevelly regulating the distribution of water under the Tambraparni project between the S. village and the adjoining village of Attur, which is situated lower down the river. The Attur raiyats were subsequently impleaded as supplemental defendants 2 to 21. Defendants 2, 4 and 8 have joined with defendant 1 the Secretary of State for India in Council, in preferring this appeal to His Majesty in Council, and the other defendants have been cited as respondents.