V SEETHAYYA Vs. PSUBRAMANYA SOMAYAJULU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a consolidated appeal from the judgment of the High Court at Madras given in eleven suits of ejectment brought by the respondents against the respective appellants. Seven out of the eleven suits were instituted in 1918, and the only question so far decided and the only question before the Board is whether the civil Court in which the actions were brought had jurisdiction and not as the appellants contend the revenue Courts The determination of this question has required recourse on seven different occasions to the Courts and has occupied nine years in Madras. The case has taken six years more to reach the Board. Their Lordships deplore this delay, which was obviously mush greater than was necessary, and reaches the borders of a scandal. They do not, however, propose to recapitulate the various stages in which the case toiled to and fro between the lower Courts and the High Court, or to apportion blame; but will address themselves at once to the question of jurisdiction. This question arises under the Madras Estates Land Act, 1903. By Section 189 of this Act exclusive jurisdiction is given to the revenue Courts to entertain all suits set out in Schedule A, which includes a suit to eject a ryot. This, by reference to Section 6 involves the question whether the ryot holds land in the "estate" of a landholder, and In re thus brought to the definition of estate, which by Section 8(d) means "any village of which the land revenue alone has been granted in inam to a person not owning the kudivaram there of, provided that the grant has been made or recognised by the British Government or any separated part of such village." The present respondents claim under an inam grant made "about 250 years ago." The grant has been recognised by the British Government. In the course of these proceedings the respondents have admitted that they did not own the kudivaram before the grant, and that they did not acquire the kudivaram independently of and after the grant. The question of jurisdiction therefore depends upon whether the inam grant was of the "land revenue alone"; whether it granted the melvaram alone or also the kudivaram, i.e., the land revenue alone or also the cultivator's share of the produce.

(2.) The principal question in the case is whether the terms of the original grant were proved, and, if so, what is the proper construction to be put upon them. The respondents case was that the original grant was lost; its express terms were not proved; and that the proper inference from all the facts, including acts of ownership by themselves and their predecessors, was that under the grant they received the kudivaram. The appellants, on the other hand, said that the respondents had disclosed a copy of the original grant which the appellants tendered in evidence. They contended that the document in sufficiently plain terms gave the melvaram only. The respondents while denying the admissibility of the copy, said that the grant on its true construction gave the kudivaram as well as the melvaram, or at any rate was so ambiguous as to admit extrinsic evidence leading to the same result. The document tendered was a Telugu document purporting to be a copy of two documents. The first was a document making a grant of the village in question to the predecessor of the plaintiffs for six pagodas, setting out the boundaries and signed by the grantors. The second was a Telugu translation of a Persian Dambala dated 1765 a, d., increasing the revenue to be paid by the holders from six to twenty-five pagodas. The document contains the endorsement "originals have been retained with us and copies have been filed 1858 "signed by the then predecessors of the respondents, one of whom Ponnapalli China Ramaswami was a plaintiff to some of the original suits now before the Board, but died at an advanced age during the proceedings. Their lordships agree with the learned Chief Justice and his colleagues in the High Court that the P.C document was admissible as evidence of the terms of the lost original, The document is over thirty years old and is produced from proper custody. By Section 90 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 the Court may therefore presume the signature authenticating the copy to be genuine. The statement to which the signatures are appended, viz., that the document is a copy of the original, appears to be evidence both for the reason given by the Chief Justice, i.e., as a statement made by a deceased person in a document relating to a relevant fact, and also as an admission made by a party and a predecessor in title of the parties.

(3.) The document being admissible is secondary evidence of the terms of the original grant, The Court therefore must proceed upon the footing that the express terms of the original written grant are before it, and mast proceed to construe them. Some confusion has been introduced into the case by conflicting decisions as to presumptions to be made in construing such a grant. The original District Munsif held that there was a presumption that such a grant did not give the kudivaram.