KATRAGADDA BRAHMAYYA, MINOR BY MOTHER AND GUARDIAN KATRAGADDA JAGADAMBA Vs. KATRAGADDA BALATRIPURA SUNDARAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal arises out of a suit in the Court of the District Munsiff of Repalle in which the plaintiff (respondent) claimed possession, rent and mesne profits in respect of two acres 59 cents of agricultural minor inam land from defendants 1, 2 and 3 (appellants 1, 2 and 3); no claim was made against defendant 4 (appellant 4) nor against defendants 5 and 6 (respondents 2 and 3); the last two named parties were joined, pro forma, as they were vendors of the land in suit to the plaintiff whose claim they supported. The learned District Munsiff dismissed the suit; an appeal by the plaintiff to the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Tenali was allowed; a second appeal by defendants 1 to 4 to this Court was dismissed by Chandrasekhara Aiyar, J., who, on the ground that difficult questions were involved, granted a certificate to prefer an appeal pursuant to the Letters Patent of the Court; upon that appeal coming before a Bench, reference was made to two decisions of this Court, each given by a Bench, in Zamindar of Parlakimedi V/s. Ramayya and Aiyanars V/s. Periakaruppa Thevan (1929) 30 L.W. 583 which, it was stated, are in conflict. The appeal has been posted before a Full Bench since it is convenient for all points arising in it to be heard at the same time.

(2.) The plaintiff's case was that the ancestors of defendants 5 and 6 were absolute proprietors of the inam land in suit, the grant in their favour, at a time immemorial, being of both the kudiwaram and the melwaram rights; by a deed of sale, dated 19 November, 1937, defendants 5 and 6 conveyed to the plaintiff those rights, together with the right to the rent in arrear due from the tenant or tenants; at the date of the sale the father of defendant 1 was the tenant, he was in arrear with the rent for the previous three years; after the purchase by the plaintiff, she let the land to the father, for fasli year 1346, that tenancy terminating by effluxion of time before the institution of the suit; the land was sold at a collusive Court auction to defendant 4 and the sale deed was later executed in favour and in the name of defendant 2 as purchaser; defendant 3 claimed to be the tenant of defendant 2; those transactions were not real or genuine ones and by them defendants 2 to 4 acquired no right to, or in the property in suit; defendants 2 and 3 were tres-passers upon the land. As against defendant 1 possession was claimed by virtue of the termination of the lease in his father's favour, by effluxion of time, together with rent unpaid for three years prior to the suit and, against defendants 2 and 3, as trespassers, for possession and mesne profits for a like period. No claim was made against defendant 4.

(3.) Defendants 1 to 4 each delivered a written statement but, at the trial and during the subsequent appeals, they united their causes, they were represented by the same advocate in the High Court, and they put forward a joint case, the substance of which was that the ancestors of defendants 5 and 6 were granted the melwaram right alone and not the kudiwaram right in the land, the latter right being granted to the predecessors of defendant 1; alternatively those predecessors acquired the kudiwaram right by prescription; whilst it was not in dispute that the father of defendant 1 and, later that defendant, were tenants of the land, the genuineness of the two leases pleaded in the plaint was denied; it was alleged that defendants 1 to 4 had permanent occupancy rights in the land; and neither defendants 5 and 6 nor the plaintiff had been in possession of the land within twelve years of the institution of the suit.