MUSUNOORI SATYANARAYANA MURTI Vs. CHEKKA LAKSHMAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts necessary for the decision of this second appeal may be briefly stated as follows: The defendant is the appellant. Plaintiffs sued the defendant to establish their right to let out drainage water along the bodi (drainage channel) marked CC-1, in the plaint and for the issue of an injunction restraining the defendant from obstructing the plaintiffs in repairing the said channel. The drainage channel passes through the defendant's fields which lie to the south of the plaintiff's lands. Plaintiffs claim to discharge the water through the channel is based upon an easement right granted to plaintiff 1 Under Ex. E by the defendant's father. Ex E dated 30 July 1911 is a letter written by the defendant's father, Dikshithalu, to plaintiff 1. It runs as follows: You wanted a bodi for flowing freely the surplus water through the land along eastern bund of Re Survey Inam No. 187 owned by us in Pedavarthi village. Having given a bodi to you in the said manner, I wanted you to give me at a future time a bodi to my land 187 through your land 75 in case I dig the earth from my land and lower the level of the same and you consented to the same. On this understanding I allow a bodi through my land.

(2.) The defendant contended (1) that Ex. E is inadmissible in evidence for want of registration under Section 54, T.P. Act, and (2) and that, if admissible in evidence, the document is not binding on him with respect to a portion of the bodi, inasmuch as, when his father granted the easement, he had no right over that particular portion of the property, which in 1916, i.e., after his father's death, came to him (the defendant) by way of reversion. The lower appellate Court disallowed the contention of the defendant on both these points and decreed the plaintiff's suit. These points are again urged before me in second appeal. Point No. 1.-In support of this contention reliance is placed upon Clauses 1 and 2, Section 54, T.P. Act. Clause 1 states that Sale is a transfer of ownership in exchange for a price paid or promised or part paid or part promised.

(3.) Under Clause 2 Such transfer...in the case of a reversion or other intangible thing can be made only by a registered instrument.