(NOOTHALAPATI) ANKAMA NAIDU Vs. (NOOTHALAPATI) BEEKI NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (Second Appeal No. 1818 of 1923). The first point in this second appeal is, what is the effect of the enfranchisement of the maniam inam in favour of the plaintiff. If the inam was excluded from the assets of the Zamindari I have no doubt under the ruling in Venkata jagannada V/s. Veerabhadrayya A. I. R. 1922 P. C. 96 the plaintiffs would get title to the property independently of and without reference to any right that any other member of his family might have had in the property before the enfranchisement. The Subordinate Judge has come to the conclusion that in the case of the Kalahasti estate in which this inam is situated the Government did not exclude from the Zamindari the inam lands in it. Mr. Chandrasekhara Aiyar for the appellant contends that he had no opportunity of meeting this case made out by the Subordinate Judge and that he should be given an opportunity to enquire and find out what the terms of the Istimrar Sannad are. The issue that was sent down by the Subordinate Judge for a finding by the first Court is not very clearly expressed. The issue is: "What is the legal effect of the enfranchisement of the plaint-mentioned inam?" After the finding by the lower Court was received, the Subordinate Judge considered this issue in the aspect already referred to. I think it is unnecessary to allow an opportunity to the appellant to find out the terms of the Istimrar Sannad as its terms appear clearly from the judgment of the Privy Council in Secretary of State V/s. Raja of Venkatagiri 44 Mad. 864 From the letter of the Board of Revenue extracted in the judgment it appears: the Peshkush was not fixed upon the assets of the estates, but was a portion of the cost of the Zamindar's military establishment inclusive of amarams and kattubadis, diminished by the amount of revenue derived from salt, sayer and abkari which were reserved by Government. The inams were not excluded by the settlement, and the Government have, therefore, no right of reversion in them.

(2.) In the Secretary of State V/s. Maharaja of Venkatagiri [1916] 31 M. L. J. 97 which is the judgment of this Court which was appealed against in Secretary of State V/s. Raja of Venkatagiri 44 Mad. 864 the learned Chief Justice in the course of his judgment observes at p. 109. The inam lands in question in this suit form part of the Zamindari, and not having been excluded, as ware the police lands, appear to me as a matter of construction to have passed under the grant, and I think that subject to the rights of the inamdars, the Zamindar is entitled to hold them under the terms of the grant, subject to the payment of the permanent peshkush, and that Government has no right to levy any fresh assessment in respect of them.

(3.) The lands being the property of the Zamindar, the Government have no right to resume them or to make a fresh grant of them to the plaintiff. The enfranchisement, therefore, in favour of the plaintiff would not give him any right to the land which he did not possess before the enfranchisment.