UNION BOARD, THROUGH ITS PRESIDENT Vs. ALARRMARUNACHALAM CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for decision in this second appeal is whether the plaintiff has a right to sue. The plaintiff's the Union Board of Devakotta and sties to have it declared that the decision of the Survey Department that a certain plot of ground is the property of the defendant and is not public-road vested in the plaintiff is a wrong decision, and for consequential reliefs. Both the Lower Courts dismissed the suit on the ground that the plaintiff has no loans standi to maintain it and the plaintiff appeals.

(2.) The decision of the Survey Officer was on the 12 May, 1920. The plaint was presented on the 6 June, 1921 and is in time, but the ground for the Lower Courts decision is that on the date of the plaint there was no Union Board validly constituted in which the right of action vested, and therefore no Union Board which could validly maintain the suit. The party who represented before the Survey Officer the claim of the public to the plot was the Taluq Board. The question for decision is whether between the date of his decision and the date of the plaint the right of action which was vested in the Taluq Board on the date of the decision had validly passed to the present plaintiff.

(3.) The old Local Boards Act (V of 1884) set up two classes of Local Boards, the District and the Taluq Board. See definition of "Local Board" in Section 3 (v.). These under Section 2,7 were corporate bodies in whom public property could be vested. They could make contracts and sue and be sued. The Act also set out rules for the appointment of Panchayats, that is, bodies of persons constituted for a Union [see Section 3 (vi)] in areas declared by the Act to be Unions, but these Panchayats were not incorporated Local Boards, nor was public landed property vested in them. The new Act XIV of 1920 sets up three classes of incorporated Local. Boards, District Boards, Taluq Boards and Union Boards (see Section 6). Section 60 thereof vests in the Union Board all public roads in its area. The Union Board of Devakotta, the present plaintiff, was constituted under this Act on the 1 April, 1922 (see Ex. CCC). Consequently it was not so constituted on the date of the plaint.