Narasimha Raghavachari vs The Secretary of State for India in Council

Bardswell, J.—This appeal is by the plaintiff. He is Monegar of a village in the North Arcot District within about three miles of the

Chingleput District border. He claims to be ekabhoga mirasidar of the suit village, Melwarma. The word ""ekabhogam,"" according to the Glossary

in the North Arcot District Manual of 1895, means the possession or tenure of all the lands of a village by a single individual or family without any

co-sharer. Survey No. 128-1, the extent of which is 66/83 acres, has been assigned by the Revenue Divisional Officer of Cheyyar to some Adi

Dravidas of a neighbouring village and the plaintiff says that the grant is in violation of his right to the said land as, in his capacity as ekabhoga

mirasidar, he and his ancestors before him have been in exclusive possession of all the village lands, including waste, poramboke and communal

lands. Even if the Government reclaims any waste land for the purposes of cultivation and in the interests of revenue it has no right to assign it to

strangers but the plaintiff as ekabhoga mirasidar has a preferential right to an assignment in his favour. He has, therefore, sued for a declaration that

the order of the Revenue Divisional Officer of Cheyyar of 3rd June, 1924, assigning the suit land to some Adi Dravidas, is illegal, ultra vires and

not binding on him. His suit has been dismissed and so he is appealing.

In his evidence the plaintiff as P.W. 1 defines his mirasi rights as meaning that he alone is to be pattadar of all assessed lands in the village, that

no land is to be assigned to anyone else, and that he is entitled to the assignment of trees and to the rocks in the village. There is no doubt but that

mirasi rights such as those to which the plaintiff lays claim used to be enjoyed to a considerable extent throughout the Presidency, but, as has been

pointed out in Seshachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1, those rights gradually got lost, though they survived in

the Districts of Chingleput and Tanjore. They also survived in the North Arcot District which is the district with which we are now concerned, as is

shown by the North Arcot District Manual of 1881, in which a reference is made to a mirasi right, to the hereditary possession of cultivable lands,

as well as to the gradual transfer in some instances of all the shares of the several mirasidars to one individual,, in which case the village that came

into the possession of a single person was styled as ekabhogam; and it is remarked that instances of such a form of tenure are still to be found in

those parts of the District which border on Chingleput. But a little later on the same District Manual refers to a report by a Collector of the District,

soon after the cession of the Carnatic, that the mirasi system had no existence in North Arcot, There is a less ambiguous statement of the position

in the revised District Manual of 1895, from which the remark as to there still being instances of the mirasi tenure to be found in the North Arcot

District is omitted.

Further it is to be observed that both these editions of the District Manual say that the hereditary mirasi rights over cultivable land belonged only

to the Vellalas, whereas the plaintiff in the present case is a Brahmin. It is, indeed, stated that mirasi privileges, which were termed Swastiams,

were enjoyed by Brahmins, but even the earlier edition of the District Manual does not refer to any such privileges as still continuing. The claim,

then, of the plaintiff is not one that starts with the initial advantage of being rendered probable, in the light of what has been shown to be the

practice, by any recognised authority upon the state of affairs in the District of North Arcot.

There is no doubt as to the continuance of some such mirasi privileges as are claimed by the plaintiff in the Chingleput District. What is the nature

and extent of such privileges has been discussed in Seshackala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1. The learned

Judge who has decided the suit under appeal thinks that, considering that the suit village is within a short distance of Chingleput border, it is not

unreasonable for plaintiff to claim that his village is a mirasi village after the Chingieput pattern. He points out that the village is not an ordinary

ryotwari village, in that no pattadar other than the plaintiff is to be found in it, and he thinks, therefore, that the plaintiff is entitled to rely on his

position as involving the existence of some right greater than that of the ordinary ryot. The learned Judge has then proceeded to consider what such

right may be with reference to Seshachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1 and has come to the conclusion that in

the light of that case the plaintiff has not on the facts established his right to such a decree as that for which he has sued. We are of opinion that in

so dealing with the case the learned Judge has not looked at it from the right angle. It cannot be presumed merely from the geographical position of

his village and from the fact that he is, or has been hitherto, the only pattadar in it that the plaintiff must be a mirasidar after the pattadar of the

mirasidars of Chingleput. It is not even as if there was any evidence to show that the suit village had at one time belonged to Chingleput District and

had been transferred to the District of North Arcot. Even, too, in Sashachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1 it

has been held by Kumaraswami Sastri, J., that, though in mirasi villages the rights of Government over waste are subject to the rights of the

mirasidars, yet the nature and extent of such right''s are not uniform throughout the Presidency, but vary, and that the onus is on the mirasidars to

prove that any specified incident attaches to mirasi rights in any particular District or portion thereof; and Sadasiva Aiyar, J., in his order of

reference in the same case, has pointed out that from the decision in Sakkaji Ran v. Latchniana Gaundan ILR (1880) M. 149, it is clear that the

extent of the mirasi right in one village was not the same as that of the mirasi right in another village even in the same District. It is, therefore,

absolutely incumbent on the plaintiff to prove what rights, if any, he possesses as ekabhogam mirasidar and we cannot start with the assumption

that, because he is styled ekabhogam mirasidar as is shown to be the case, and has been hitherto the sole pattadar in a village that lies close to the

Chingleput border, he must have certain privileges and then proceed to see what those privileges are, with reference not to any evidence on record

but only to opinions expressed as to those privileges in Scshachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1 or any other

reported decisions.

Proof that the plaintiff has the privileges which he claims is entirely wanting. He says that he had a sanad which was filed in some proceedings in

1880, but he does not explain why this sanad, or a copy of it, could not be put in. He merely says that he never got it back. None of his witnesses

shows, nor even attempts to show, that only he has the right to patta for all the cultivable land in the village. On the other hand he himself has

admitted that his cultivation of the suit'' land has been treated as unauthorised, apparently without his making any protest. The witness who is most

favourable to him is the karnam, D. W. 2, who has described him as ekabhogam mirasidar in official documents, who would call him hereditary

mirasidar of the village and who says that ""Mirasidar"" means owner of the village. This witness, however, does not say what rights attach to the

position of an ekabhogam mirasidar, while the mere fact that the plaintiff is so described goes for very little. Proof is needed that the description still

has the same significance that originally attached to it, and has not become a mere expression like the title of a sinecure holder. Such proof is

entirely lacking. There is, of course, the fact that he has been hitherto the sole pattadar in the suit village; but it is for him to show that this is by

virtue of some right which he possesses, and this he has not done. The existence of such a right in him cannot be merely inferred. As to the meaning

of ""owner"" which D.W. 2 gives to the word ""mirasi,"" it is one that can only be accepted with qualification. The Glossary in the North. Arcot District

Manual of 1895 explains mirasi tenure ""as that under which the lands of a village are divided among certain families who are called mirasidars,

while Seshachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1 indicates that the right of a mirast-dar to cultivable land in a

village was not an absolute but a preferential one, and Wallis, C.J., has remarked in his judgment in this case that even as regards cultivable waste

the mirasidar''s ownership has not been fully established.

In the same case it has been remarked by Ayling, J., that he could find no authority in support of any right of recovery by the mirasidars of

arable waste granted by Government to another person. It is, of course, at such a recovery that the plaintiff is aiming in this suit. The same opinion

has been more strongly expressed by Turner, C.J., in Subharaya Mudali v. The Sub-Collector of Chingleput ILR (1883) M. 303, when he says

that a Civil Court cannot compel the Revenue authorities to make settlement with a particular person, and that in the matter the discretion of the

Revenue; authorities is uncontrolled. This view has been referred to with approval in Theivu Pandithan v. Secretary of State for India ILR (1898)

M. 433.

We may note that the decision in Seshachala Chetty v. Chinnaswami ILR (1916) M. 410 : 32 M.L.J. (Sup.) 1, to which many references have

been made in this judgment and which has been called a great deal to our attention on the hearing of this appeal, is one as to whether or no, in a

mirasi village, a mirasidar was to be presumed to be the owner of the gramanatham. The decision was adverse to the mirasi claims of presumptive

ownership and that is all that the case decides, all that is said as to the general rights of a mirasidar being by way of discussion. None the less we

should have to treat the opinions of the various learned Judges who dealt with the case with considerable respect could the plaintiff show that his

case was a case to which they applied. This, however, he has failed to do, while even that decision itself, in the judgment of Kumaraswami Sastri,

J., is an authority showing that the plaintiff must establish the rights to which he lays claim by evidence.

As he has entirely failed to achieve this, his suit has been rightly dismissed. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.