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1. The question referred to us is, whether in a mirasi village the mirasidar is entitled to recover possession of a house site held under a patta from Government; and, to show what it involves, it may be well to state at once the circumstances in which it arises in the case under appeal. On the 16th' November 1894 Mr. George Stuart Forbes, Acting Collector of Chingleput, passed orders on certain petitions praying for an extension of the cheri nattam, or part of the village site reserved for pariahs, in the village of Mannur in the Saidapet Taluk not far from Madras. He began by observing that out of the whole Survey No. 14A of 23 acres which was classed as village site, 97 cents, or nearly one acre, identical with Survey No 45 in the paimash or old survey, was shown in the paimash account as "Cherial Pizhakkadai" or reserved for pariahs. There had, he went on to say, been no erection on this site by any mirasidar since the date of the paimash (apparently about 1845) and the only building on it was an arrack shop. He did not interfere with this, but stated that the rest of the plot was available for sites in extension of the paracheri or pariahs' quarters, and directed it to be laid out in streets and house sites in such a manner as to facilitate sanitation and the convenience of the residents. As regards any claims from mirasidars, ho merely observed that "the short usurpation by the mirasidars in recent times which is supported by the entry in the Adangal of 'Seshachellam Chetty (plaintiff) and others', is invalid and cannot be recognized." The Adangal (Exhibit G) is described as the village account of lands held in the village according to Survey numbers. The paimash register only contained the names of actual occupiers of sites in the nattam, as appears from Exhibit X, but in 1886 it came to light that at some time or other the names of the mirasidars had been inserted in the Adangal as well the names of the actual occupiers which alone appeared in the paimash register, and had also been inserted as owners of the unoccupied sites as regards which no names appeared in the paimash register; and this was apparently what Mr. Forbes was alluding to in speaking of the recent usurpation. Exhibits I to VIII are applications for sites put in immediately after the Collector's order by residents in the paracheri which, the endorsements show, were granted or refused according to the merits. This was in 1894 and early in 1895, and the present suit was not brought until January 1905 ten years later. The plaint alleges that the plot was the property of the plaintiffs and that they constructed and rented to the 13th defendant a leaf-roofed shop marked B in the annexed plan; that the defendants on 17-10-1903 took wrongful possession of the plot and erected the shed marked C; and that defendants 1 to 12 with the 13th defendant afterwards dismantled the shop B and erected the sheds D and E. Defendants 1 to 12 pleaded that the site was not the property of the plaintiffs but of Government who had granted the sites thereon. They alleged that the buildings C (a mission hall) and E (a sundries bazaar) had always been in existence and that D bad been erected three or four months previously as the shop B was in a ruined state. The 13th defendant pleaded that he was only a servant of the owner of the toddy shop, and the latter was added as 14th defendant but remained ex parte. The District Munsif at first dismissed the suit on the ground that the Secretary of State in Council was not a party, but on appeal the plaintiffs undertook to make him a party, and this having been done, the Collector filed a written statement on his behalf as 15th defendant in which he alleged that the plaintiffs have not and never had any title to the property, and never occupied it in a manner inconsistent with the rights of Government, and that Government had exercised rights of ownership over it to the knowledge of the mirasidars, The entries in the village accounts for some years by officers who were themselves mirasidars were, it was alleged, only paper entries and did not affect the proprietary right of Government. In his judgment the District Muusif observed that in the Settlement Register Exhibit E (1875) the names of the 1st plaintiff and the other mirasidars were not entered against Survey No. 14A, the village site, and thenceforward they had never taken any steps to assort the right to the land and have it included in their pangu lands. The District Judge took the same view and observed that the plaintiffs had never cultivated the land, and had put up the thatched hut B in 1902 long after Government had assigned the sites. They accordingly dismissed the suit but held it was not barred as it was instituted within 12 years of the grants made under Mr. Forbes's orders at the end of 1894. The result of the findings would therefore appear to be that the site in question was waste land over which the plaintiffs never exercised any rights of ownership until some years after it had been allotted by Government in extension of the cheri or pariah's quarters.

12. We are not however immediately concerned in this case with the general question of the ownership of waste lands but with the ownership of part of the village nattam or village site. The nattam or area reserved for house sites is a feature of every village, zamindari, ryotwari and mirasi alike, and consists of unassessed land set apart for the erection of houses and for the adjoining backyards. In Dr. Hultzsch's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. II, pt. 1, No. 4, we find the ur-nattam and paracheri, or pariahs' quarters, enumerated with tanks and burying grounds as free from assessment, and there are other inscriptions of the same kind showing that a portion of the site was set apart for pariahs or untouchables from very early times. So far as the inscriptions enable us to judge, the affairs of the village appear to have been managed by sabhas or assemblies of leading men in the village who were probably left to allot house sites as the occasion arose without iterference. Such a power of allotment would not connote ownership, but might of coarse give rise to it if it led to the sites being dealt with as private property and sold or leased as such.

14. In 1869 Government framed Dharkast rules (as to applications for grants of land) in the District in which the prior claims of the mirasidars were recognised. Rule 13 however provided that tanks, threshing floors, burying grounds etc., should not be given away on dharkast and concluded "applications for gramanattam or village sites shall not be entertained." In 1872 as appears from G.O. dated 16th December 1872 No. 1684, the Board called for returns from Collectors as to the practice in their districts of giving gramanattam land as house-sites to persons who were neither pattadars nor actual cultivators; and the answer from Chingleput was it was granted to all applicants on a fixed scale. This goes to show that the mirasidars were, to say the least, not then very conscious of their rights now claimed for them. Commenting on the answers returned, the Board put forward the view that the gramanattam in villages is the communal property of the villagers, a position which may be taken up with regard to non-mirasi as well as to mirasi villages. But the Government of the day were not prepared to go so far, as they were of opinion that the old hookamnamahs showed that enjoyment of the gramanattam was subject to regulation by Government. These hookamnamahs no doubt related to non-mirasi villages, for as already observed, whatever the ownership of the nattam, the mirasidars were probably left to allot sites in the nattam according to requirements and this was probably not interfered with by the Mahomedan rulers who generally rented the villages to the mirasidars themselves at a fixed rental, except in so far as they may have granted villages in inam. The District Manual contains"a long list of inams, but there are no particulars of the dates or terms of the grants. In passing orders on this occasion asserting the title of Government in the nattam in ordinary villages Government made an exception in favour of purely mirasi villages where they said "the gramanattam no doubt appertains to the mirasidars equally with the other poramboke." Accordingly they issued rules on the subject excepting Zemindari and mirasi villages and villages which were private properly, although the Collector's answer showed that the grants of nattam had been made by Government without opposition in Chingleput. Two years later however when the settlement of Chingleput was effected an entry was made in the settlement register of each village (cf. Exhibit E) that in the gramanattam no new enclosure was to be made or new building erected without permission in future, which shows that the nattam was not then treated as completely at the disposal of the mirasidars. The G.O. dated 18th August 1886 No. 724 Rev. contains a Board's proceeding rejecting the claim of the mirasidars to control the cherinattam in which the claims of the mirasidars are vigorously attacked on much the same grounds as have been urged before us, and Government did not interfere with the Board's decision but recorded the proceedings without remark. In 1890 Government followed this up by directing that in the Adangal accounts, where in addition to the name of the occupier the name of the mirasidar was found, it should no longer be recorded. The paimash register Exhibit X in this case only gives the names of the owners of sites in actual occupation and does not show any owner against No. 45 the suit land but merely describes it as the backyard of the cherimen. At some subsequent period the names of the mirasidars were entered as owners in the Adangal account, not only of unoccupied sites like this, but also of the occupied sites. It was alleged that this had been done surreptitiously to create evidence of ownership and the mirasidars names were struck out in cases where there was an occupier, but apparently were left in when the site was unoccupied. In these circumstances I cannot give the entries in the Adangal accounts the weight that might otherwise attach to them. The question came up again in 1892 when Government expressed them selves more guardedly observing "the question of the ownership of pariah house-sites is one of legal right and if the mirasidars have it they can only be expropriated by compensation." Lastly we have the report of the Special Settlement Officer Mr. Stuart in G.O. 2868 dated 19-10-1909 which shows that where the mirasi right is in the hands of a few, the claim to the village site is still often kept alive and used for the purpose of keeping the rest of the population in subject ion, and that in other cases no attempt is made to enforce it.

61. The next landmark is 1886, when the whole question in much the same form as that in which it now presents itself came before the Board of Revenue in connection with an appeal presented by the mirasidars of Nemelicheri against a certain order of Mr. C.A. Galton, then Collector of Chingleput. The Board says in its Resolution No. 1547, dated 7-7-1886 : "This is an appeal which raises the question of the right of mirasidars (in Chingleput) to the ownership and the full control of the Gramanattam or village site. It appears that the mirasidars of Nemelicheri asserted this right over the land in the parachery of their village and did so by ploughing up part of it, by erecting huts without the, permission of anybody and by ousting a pariah who had occupied a house in the parachery for forty years. In their petition the mirasidars assert an absolute right of property in the parachery land or "cheri nattam" and a right to oust their farm labourers or apparently any pariah from it.