SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL Vs. SRI SRI SRI MEERJA SRI PASUPATI VIJAYARAMA GAJAPATHI RAJU MAHARAJAH MANYA SULTAN BAHADUR RAJAH OF VIZIANAGARAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case we have had the benefit of an exhaustive argument on both sides and are particularly indebted to the learned Government Pleader, Mr. Ramesam, for the pains he has taken in presenting the facts to us in the clearest and most intelligible light. I have also had the advantage of perusing the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver, and can add nothing material to it. The evidence leaves no doubt in my mind that the lower Court s decision on the question of fact is correct. The nucleus of the suit lanka is not an island formed vertically in the bed of the Godavari, but an accretion to plaintiff s pre-existing Voota Chiguru Lanka formed in 1883 and severed from the latter about four years later. I do not think we should be justified in refusing to recognize plaintiff s title to the land thus formed on the ground of the comparative rapidity with which the formation took place. No doubt the reported decisions of the English Courts would, seem to indicate that they Would refuse to treat such a formation as an accretion, if it occurred in an English river. An addition of over 600 acres in the course of a single flood season could not be described as slow and gradual according to the standard of additions by alluvion in English rivers. But there is nothing abnormal in such a phenomenon in Indian rivers, and although several cases have been quoted in which the Privy Council has dealt with claims to accretions by alluvions in Indian rivers, I find none in which this claim has been rejected merely on the ground of the extent of land thus newly formed and the shortness of the period occupied in formation. In Lopez v. Muddun Mohan Thakoor (1870) 13 M.I.A. 467 and Hursuhai Singh v. Syud Loot Ali Khan (1874) 2 I.A. 28 the lands claimed as accretions measured in round figures 2,500 and 5,000 acres respectively. The exact length of time occupied in formation does not appear but it would seem to have been within a space of about fifteen years in each case The claims by accretions were rejected solely on the principle of re-formation and there is nothing in the judgment to suggest that apart from this their Lordships would have hesitated to admit the claim by accretion. It seems to me the recognition of title by alluvial accretion is largely governed by the fact that the latter is due to the normal action of physical forces: and the different conditions of Indian and English rivers is such that what would be abnormal and almost miraculous in the latter is normal and common place in the former as pointed out by their Lordships of the Privy Council in Srinath Roy v. Dinabandhu Sen (1915) I.L.R. 42 Calc. 489 at p. 531 et seq. (P.C.). Such a difference cannot be ignored in the application of the legal principles of alluvial accretions and it seems to have been given effect to in Bengal Regulation II of 1825. The only requirements in Section 4 of that enactment is that this accretion should be gradual, not that it should be slow or imperceptible. Abnormal changes due to sudden alterations of course and violent avulsions are separately provided for; but all accessions by gradual alluvion are treated alike irrespective of the rate of formation.

(2.) I must confess to some doubt as to the extent to which the rapidly changing character of the formations in Indian rivers should affect the principles of re- formation. The permanence of the formations by alluvial accretions seems to vary inversely with their rapidity and the lanka formed in the course of a year or two is frequently destroyed in an equally short space of time. Whether the proprietor of such an evanescent property should be deemed to be entitled ipso facto to all subsequent formations over the same portion of the river-bed whatever their origin seems to me open to question. The re-formation principle was certainly recognized and acted upon by the Privy Council in two of the cases cited above, but the circumstances were peculiar and its general applicability to cases like the one before us does not follow. Fortunately although a certain amount of argument was devoted to this point, it is not one which need be decided for the purpose of the present appeal.

(3.) I concur in the conclusions arrived at by my learned brother and would dismiss this appeal with costs. Srinivasa Ayyangar, J.