KALLURI PUNNAYYA Vs. KALLURI LAKSHMINARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application by the respondent in A.S. 414 of 1924 under Secs.109 and 110, Civil P.C., for permission to appeal to the Privy Council against the judgment and decree of this Court in that appeal. By that judgment and decree this Court set aside the decision in O.S. 7 of 1923 on the file of the Court of Additional Subordinate Judge of Bapatla. As the decision sought to be appealed against is a reversing one, the question for consideration is as regards the value of the land which forms the subject-matter of the suit and the appeal. The petitioner's case is that its value is at least Rs. 10,000 so that the condition laid down by Section 110, Civil P.C., viz., that the value of the subject-matter of the suit in the Court of first instance must be Rs. 10,000 or upwards and the value of the subject-matter in dispute on appeal to His Majesty in Council must be the same sum or upwards is satisfied in this case. It has also been argued that even if the value of the subject-matter is below Rs. 10,000 leave should be given under Section 109, (e).

(2.) The learned Subordinate Judge, on a consideration mainly of the documentary evidence, came to the conclusion that the price of the suit land is Rs. 6,930; and adding to this the mesne profits of Rs. 1,600 he found that the total value of the subject-matter of the suit on the date of the decree in appeal in the High Court amounted to Rs. 8,530: see para. 15 of his, report.

(3.) The subject-matter of the suit is an inam wet land consisting of 4 acres 62 cents. It is a sanctioned wet land and lies to the west of a donka. There is nothing on the record to show when the Government granted sanction to irrigate the suit land, but it is stated that it began to be cultivated wet about two years subsequent to 1917. The following general facts can be gathered from the evidence-given by the witnesses in this petition. The sites to the north of the suit land) are higher in, level than the suit land. These are house sites and there are cattle sheds also. To the east are wet lands, some of them being old wet lands which are unfit for growing dry crops, but in which wet crops are now being raised. House sites are more valuable than cultivable lands. Old wet lands are also admittedly more valuable than the suit land. The lands round about the suit land are seri lands. The drainage water of the village goes through the suit land and some quantity of it stagnates there. Before the suit land became converted" into a wet land it was a chowdu land, chowdu meaning salt or saline earth. Even after it became wet some chowdu earth remained on the suit land and it has to be removed: see the evidence of P.W. 12. These facts which, are admitted in the course of the evidence by the petitioner's witnesses themselves show that the suit land is not as good as. the lands in its neighbourhood and suffers mainly from two defects, namely, the salinity of its earth though it is stated to be decreasing and the fact that some of the drainage water collects in it.