M NAGU CHETTY Vs. MBHASKARA SETHUPATHI AVERGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are appeals against the decrees of the District Judge of Madura reversing the decrees of the District Munsif of Paramakudi.

(2.) The appellants are ryots in the village of Tirupullani in the Ramnad Zemindari. The respondents are the Ramnad zemindar, the trustee of the Tirupullani temple, and one Arunachellam Chettiar, the lessee under the zemindar of this and certain other villages belonging to the temple. The questions for decision refer to the terms of certain pattas tendered to the appellants under the Rent Recovery Act. That the lands belong to the temple makes no difference. They are held on the same tenure as the ordinary zemin lands. The temple derived its title to the same by gift from the zemindar.

(3.) In the early part of the century there were lands in the village under wet cultivation which depended upon a tank for their irrigation. That tank has now disappeared. Whether there were any dry or punja lands then under cultivation is one of the points now in dispute between the parties. According to the plaintiffs there were punja lands under cultivation paying their share of the produce to the zemindar. However that may be, it is admitted that about 1815 the Collector who was in management of the Ramnad estate put an end to the sharing system so far at any rate as the punja lands were concerned and directed that thence forward rent should be received only in money, not in kind and the ordinary money rent payable for the cultivated punja lands was fixed and paid from that date at 5 1/2 fanams per kurukam. By patting up ridges on all sides to retain rain-water and removing the surface soil, the ryots are now raising paddy crops. According to the plaintiffs they have been doing so only for the last seven years while, according to the defendants this sort of wet cultivation has been carried on for the last forty or fifty years. But whatever the period of time, it is conceded that the ryots have been paying only at the rate of 5 1/2 fanams per kurukam, the rate settled in the beginning of the century. In 1892 Arunachellam Chetti's father obtained his lease and he tendered to the ryots the patta for fasli 1303 which the ryots have now refused to accept on account of some of the terms contained therein. The ryots object to any condition that they must pay varam or any share of the produce if they raise paddy which is a wet crop on these punja lands with the water retained by putting up ridges or by any other means. No objection is raised to the payment of varam if the zemindar's water is used.