SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL THROUGH THE COLLECTOR OF TINNEVELLY Vs. SRI PERARULALA RAMANUJA JEER SWAMIGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a suit by the plaintiff: to recover water-cess levied by Government on the amount of wet cultivation in the plaintiff s inam village of Oochikulam, which is in excess of the amount mentioned for that village in the inam title-deed, Exhibit O. Admittedly the inam title- deed constitutes an engagement with Government within the meaning of Act VII of 1865 to supply water free of charge for the area of wet cultivation in the village mentioned therein, but the Subordinate Judge has held that the plaintiff is entitled to irrigate free of charge in respect of a much larger area, and if this be so, it must be by virtue of some engagement with Government other than the inam title-deed. The plaintiff s case is that he has been all along since the paimash in 1802 cultivating about double this quantity of wet and that the amount entered in the title-deed is a mistake. Exhibit I, on the other hand, shows that the wet cultivation at the time of the paimaslb was only 41k. 4m. 23/4p. In support of this contention, he relies on certain cadijan accounts beginning with the ecarly years of Inst century. We are not prepared to rely on these cadijanx which have a very modern look and may well have been fabricated. In 1904 he was asked to support his case by accounts and failed to produce these cadijans. It is curious that in the very year in which the inam inquiry was held the plaintiff s cadijan accounts show a much greater extent of wet cultivation in this village than was given by the plaintiff s predecessor to the Commissioner in his signed statement, Exhibit la. We know how carefully the Tnmu Register was prepared and that the plaintiff had an opportunity of correcting the statement of the Revenue Officials, and that instead of so doing he gave a statement practically to the very same effect. It is not to be supposed that the Revenue Authorities would have fallen into such an error, or that if they had, the inamdar would have failed to point it out or would have accepted a title-deed in like lerms of Exhibit O. The plaintiff s explanation that his statement to the Inani Commissioner related to the whole live villages and that there may then have been a deficiency of wet cultivation in the other villages which made his total accurate, is most improbable and no attempt has been made to show that there was any such deficiency in the other villages by producing the village accounts. In these circumstances we cannot act upon the cadijan accounts now put forward as proof that at the date of the Inam Settlement the plaintiff was really cultivating the au count which he claims. We cannot place any reliance either on the statements of the plaintiff s witnesses that the lands now cultivated us wet were always so cultivated.

(2.) WE allow the appeal and dismiss the suit with costs throughout.