MAUNG BYA Vs. MAUNG KYI NEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the Chief Court of Lower Burma (Maung Kin and Duckworth JJ.) dated May 31, 1921, allowing the appeal of the respondents against a decree of the District Court of Pyapon (Po Bye District Judge) dated September 27, 1919, by which the said District Judge ordered the respondents to pay the appellants the sum of Rs. 8,821-48 by way of damages and the costs of the suit.

(2.) The appellants in the second paragraph of their case allege that " the question raised is whether in Burma a lower agricultural owner is liable to compensate a higher agricultural owner for damage to crops by inundation caused by the blocking of a canal running through the lands of the lower owner by which the water would otherwise have been drained from the land of the higher owner.

(3.) In a sense, but only in a limited sense, is that statement accurate. Save in the second and third of the reasons for their appeal it is put forward that the law applicable in Lower Burma to the flow of and flooding by fresh-water rivers or watercourses, whether they be natural or artificial, or trespasses on the bed and soil of such rivers and streams, is different from the law as applied to similar subjects in England. A little consideration of the two cases cited (Abdul Hakim v. Ganesh Dutt (1885) I. L. R. 12 Cal. 343 and Ramaswmy V/s. Rasi (1913) I. L. R. 38 Mad. 149) will show that there is no conflict between the two systems of law, and it was not contended in argument on the hearing of the appeal that the general principles of the laws of England touching the matters above mentioned did not apply to Lower Burma.