PARIMI CHAKRAPANI NAIDU Vs. MATTAPALLI VENKATARAJU (DECEASED)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant in this case appeals against the decree for damages caused to the plaintiff's land by the loss of irrigation facilities, resulting from the action of the defendant in obstructing the legitimate construction of a temporary dam across an irrigation channel and in obtaining orders from the Courts which prevented the plaintiff from having the use of water to which he was entitled, pending Magisterial and Civil Courts proceedings.

(2.) There is no doubt about the facts. The obstruction was on 31 August, 1924. After interfering with the making of this dam, the defendant moved the Magistrate and procured an order under Section 147, Criminal Procedure Code, on 21st November, 1924, restraining the plaintiff from damming the channel and taking water to his land. The plaintiff consequently had to file a civil suit to establish his right and he also applied for a temporary injunction against the defendant to restrain him from interfering with the exercise of this right. The defendant opposed the grant of any such injunction and it was consequently refused. Eventually, the plaintiff got a decree recognising his right to the water and he now claims damages for the loss of the crops which would have been harvested in January 1926, January 1927 a January, 1928.

(3.) This appeal has once been heard by Cornish, J., but the judgment, unfortunately, was of no effect because one of the parties was dead at the time when the appeal was heard.