Varada Bhavanarayana Rao vs State Of Andhra Pradesh and Ors

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 340 of 1961

Decision Date: 25 March 1963

Coram: K.C. Das Gupta, P.B. Gajendragadkar, K.N. Wanchoo

In this case the appellant, Varada Bhavanarayana Rao, possessed the major portion of certain villages that were covered by three inam grants located in the District of Vishakapatnam, which at the time lay within the State of Madras. The Inam Commissioner subsequently issued fresh inam title deeds that confirmed the original grants. A Special Officer, appointed by the Madras Government under section 2 of the Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947, examined the matter and concluded that the lands included in the fresh inam deeds qualified as “Estates” within the meaning of section 3(2)(d) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. The Officer then recommended that fair and equitable rates of rent be fixed for the raiyati lands that formed part of this estate. Following this recommendation the Government of Madras issued a notification in the Gazette fixing the rent rates accordingly.

The appellant challenged the notification by invoking article 226 of the Constitution and sought a writ of mandamus directing the State to refrain from giving effect to the Gazette notification. The High Court, however, held that the appellant’s appropriate remedy was to institute a suit and consequently dismissed the petition. Thereafter the appellant instituted a civil suit. The Trial Court accepted the appellant’s contention that the land in dispute did not constitute an estate as defined by section 3(2)(d) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. On appeal, the High Court reversed the Trial Court’s decision and allowed the appellant’s appeal. The present appeal before the Supreme Court was filed on a certificate that the High Court had granted.

Representing the appellant, it was submitted that the record contained no material showing that the original grant covered a whole village or even a village identified by name, and therefore the lands could not be brought within the definition of “Estate” contained in section 3(2)(d) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. It was further argued that the burden of proving whether the land constituted an estate rested upon the State, and that the State had failed to meet this burden. The respondents, on the other hand, contended that the scheme of Explanation (1) to section 3(2)(d) indicated that the legislature intended the court to presume that when an inam grant was expressed as being of a named village, the area covered by the grant formed an estate, although such presumption could be rebutted. The case therefore required an interpretation of the statutory provisions, including section 1 of the Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947, section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908, and sections 101, 102 and 103 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, to determine the correct burden of proof and the applicability of the estate definition.

In this case the Court observed that the law does not establish a mandatory presumption that a grant of an inam described as being of a named village automatically creates an estate. The Court held that although a grant expressed to be of a named village may be deemed an estate if it falls within the specific explanation to section 3(2)(d) of the Madras Estates Land Act, the mere fact that the grant is of a named village does not in itself give rise to a rebuttable presumption of estate status. The Court approved the view expressed in Varadaraja‑Swamivari Temple v. Krishnappa, 1 L.R. (1958) Mad. 1023, and rejected the position taken in Janakiramaraju v. Appalaswami, 1 L.R. (1954) Mad. 980 and Narayanaswami Nayada v. Subramaniyam, (1915) I.L.R. 39 Mad. 683, which had suggested that such a presumption existed. Consequently, the legislature was found not to have created any presumption either way. In the absence of a statutory presumption, the Court turned to the provisions of sections 101, 102 and 103 of the Evidence Act to determine the allocation of the burden of proof. Applying those evidentiary rules, the Court concluded that the burden of proving that the suit land does not constitute an estate rested upon the plaintiff. Because the plaintiff failed to discharge that burden, the appeal was dismissed. The Court distinguished the earlier decision in District Board Tanjore v. Noor Mohammad, A.I.R. 1953 S.C. 446, noting that it was not applicable to the present circumstances.

The factual background of the appeal concerned a village called Vandrada located in the district of Vishakhapatnam, then part of the State of Madras. According to the records, the entire area of Vandrada village had become subject to five separate inam grants, the largest portion of which was held by the appellant, Varada Bhavanarayana Rao. In the year 1864 the Inam Commissioner issued fresh inam title deeds confirming the existing grants and recorded the total area of the village as 768.60 acres. Of this total, 66.12 acres were classified as unassessed poramboke, while 690.13 acres of dry and wet land were incorporated in a title deed numbered 1082. An additional 9.25 acres were covered by title deeds numbered 940 and 941, and two further title deeds numbered 940 and 911 granted by the Inam Commissioner encompassed a further 3.04 acres. The central issue before the Court was whether the inam created by the original grant – the grant that was later confirmed by title deed 1082 – qualified as an “estate” within the meaning of the Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947 (Act XXX of 1947). The determination of this question was essential because the Act applied only to lands that fell within the definition of estate under section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. The Court set out the relevant statutory provisions and then proceeded to analyze whether the suit land satisfied the criteria for estate status under the main portion of section 3(2)(d) and its accompanying explanation. The judgment of the Court, delivered by Justice Das Gupta, was rendered on 25 March 1963, following the appeal from a judgment and decree dated 26 November 1958 of the Andhra Pradesh High Court at Hyderabad in Appeal Suit No. 1228 of 1953.

In the judgment the Court explained that the statute commonly called the Reduction of Rent Act contained a provision in section 1 which made the Act applicable to all estates as defined in section 3(2) of the Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. The relevant part of section 3(2) of that earlier Act stated that “any inam village of which the grant has been made, confirmed or recognised by the Government, notwithstanding that subsequent to the grant the village has been partitioned among the grantees or the successors in title of the grantee or grantees” was to be treated as an estate. An accompanying explanation clarified that when an inam grant was expressed to be of a named village, the area described in the grant was to be deemed an estate even if the grant did not cover certain lands in the same village that had already been given on service tenure or reserved for communal purposes. The Court then noted that the Special Officer appointed by the Government of Madras under section 2 of the Rent Reduction Act had examined the inam lands for which title deed 1082 had been issued and, acknowledging that those lands were then held in inam by the appellant, had concluded that they constituted an estate within the meaning of the Act. Acting under the statute, the Officer recommended rates of rent that were fair and equitable for the raiyati lands comprising that estate. On 27 June 1950 the Government of Madras published in the Gazette a notification fixing the rates of rent payable for the lands in the village in accordance with the Officer’s recommendations. Aggrieved by the Government’s action, the appellant filed a petition in the Madras High Court under article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a writ of mandamus that would compel the State to refrain from giving effect to the notification. The High Court held that the appropriate remedy for the appellant was to bring a suit rather than to obtain a writ, and consequently dismissed the petition, noting that the Government had undertaken to waive its right to enforce the notice under section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Following that decision, the appellant instituted a suit before the Subordinate Judge at Srikakulam, which became the subject of the present appeal. In the plaint the appellant asserted that the lands described in title deed 1082 were neither the grant of a whole village nor of any named village. He further contended that the lands now covered by the single title deed had originally been the subject of several separate grants. Moreover, the plaintiff claimed that portions of the village not included in the earlier grants had later been allotted through additional grants that were separately confirmed, issuing distinct title deeds numbered 940, 941, and 179 and 180. Relying on these averments, the plaintiff argued that the lands covered by title deed 1082 did not form an estate at all and consequently prayed for a declaration to that effect.

The plaintiff sought a declaration that the lands covered by title deed number 1082 did not constitute an estate. The State of Madras was the primary defendant and opposed the plaintiff’s claim. In its written statement the State asserted that, with respect to the suit land, there existed a single grant of a specifically named village and it denied that any further grants had been made out of any reserved lands thereafter. Consequently, the State urged that the plaintiff’s contention that the lands failed to form an estate should be rejected. Defendants numbered two through thirty‑one, who had been impleaded as tenants cultivating portions of the land described in title deed 1082, raised similar defenses. The Trial Court examined the entries in the Inam Fair Register and observed that the original grant appeared to have been made to multiple persons, that deductions were recorded for poramboke as well as for personal and service inams, and that, although the original grant might have arisen from a single transaction, the confirmation was not effected by a single title deed. Relying on these observations, the Trial Court concluded that the suit lands did not meet the definition of an estate contained in section 3(2)(d) of the Madras Estates Land Act. The State of Madras appealed this finding, and the Madras High Court reached a contrary view. The High Court held that the trial judge’s opinion – that an estate required confirmation under one grant – was untenable. According to the High Court, the entries in the Inam Fair Register demonstrated that the grant comprised a named village and that the Inam Commissioner had confirmed the inam as granted. The High Court further expressed the view that the entire Inam Inquiry proceeded on the premise that the whole village, except for two minor inams, had been given in inam to Chatti Venkatacharlu and others. Based on this reasoning, the High Court allowed the State’s appeal and dismissed the suit, awarding costs to the State. The plaintiff then filed the present appeal, relying on a certificate issued by the High Court. Counsel for the plaintiff argued that the record contained no material showing that the original grant covered the whole village or that it was identified by name. He further contended that, even if the original grant confirmed by title deed 1082 were deemed to be of a named village, the burden remained on the defendants to demonstrate that the portions of the village now reflected in the minor grants – represented by title deeds numbers 940, 941, 179 and 180 – had been granted before the date of the original grant. Counsel maintained that the defendants had not satisfied this burden, and therefore the plaintiff’s case that the lands do not form an estate should be upheld. The factual issues raised therefore require resolution based on the limited evidence presented in the Inam Fair Register.

The factual disputes in the matter were required to be resolved on the scant evidence that was available in the Inam Fair Register of Vandrada village. As is commonly the case in similar disputes, neither the original grant that was later confirmed by title deed number 1082 nor the original documents supporting the other four title deeds were produced before the Court. An inspection of the entries recorded in the Inam Fair Register showed that the inam grant recorded in 1864 under title deed number 1082 had originally been made by the Nawab Mofuz Khan in the year 1739. The register indicated that the area covered by this original grant was estimated at forty garces in the year 1797, but a subsequent account made in 1816 recalculated the same area as one hundred garces. Because the register only provided a measurement of area and did not specify that the whole village had been included in the original grant, it could not be concluded that the entire village of Vandrada formed part of the Nawab’s grant. Consequently, the land that was the subject of the suit could not be said to constitute a whole inam village within the meaning of clause (f) set out earlier. Nonetheless, the land might still qualify as an estate if it fell within the scope of the Explanation attached to that clause. The effect of the Explanation had been summarised in a full‑bench judgment of the Madras High Court in Varadaraja‑Swamivari Temple v. Krishnappa (1), which held that where an inam grant was made of a specifically named village, the grant would constitute an estate even though the grantee did not receive the benefit of any minor inams situated within the geographical limits of that village, provided that it could be shown that the minor inams had been granted before the grant of the remainder of the village as a named village. The Court was of the opinion that the High Court was correct in finding that the original grant concerned a named village. This conclusion was supported not only by the description in column 8 of the Inam Register, which identified the grant as “Vandrada Shrotriem and Agrahar of Vandrada,” but also by an entry in column 20 referencing Mr. Scott’s Register of 1207 Fasli, which recorded that the village of Vandrada had originally been granted in A.D. 1739 for subsistence to Chatti Venkatachari and others. Because this grant had subsequently been confirmed by title deed number 1082, it was clearly a grant of a named village. However, that fact alone did not suffice to render the land an estate. It was also necessary to demonstrate that the minor inams covering portions of the village—specifically, the Devadayan inam of 9.25 acres and the personal inams of 3.04 acres—had been granted prior to the grant of the remainder of the village as a named village. The record contained no information regarding the dates of those minor inams, making it essential to examine the issue of the burden of proof. The Court therefore turned to the decision in District Board, Tanjore v. Noor Mohd. (1) for guidance on how that burden should be allocated.

In the case cited as Noor Mohd. (1), the prevailing view has been that when a court must decide whether particular lands constitute an “estate,” the responsibility for proving that those lands are an estate lies with the party that raises the claim. On closer scrutiny, however, the judgment does not provide a definitive authority for this principle. The opinion delivered by Justice Mahajan, who was then a judge of the court, records that the counsel for the respondent, identified as Mr. Somayya, conceded that the burden of proving the existence of an estate falls on the party asserting it. The decision proceeded on the basis of this concession and contains no independent analysis of the issue, nor does it articulate a clear pronouncement on the matter. Similarly, Justice Chandrasekhara Aiyar observed that the respondent had not successfully discharged the onus required to demonstrate that Kunanjeri was an “estate” within the meaning of the statute. His conclusion that such an onus rested upon the respondent likewise stemmed from the concession made by the counsel. Consequently, it would be inappropriate to treat the judgment in the District Board, Tanjore case (1) as establishing a rule on the allocation of the burden of proof in these circumstances. The judgment in that case, reported in A. I. R. 1953 S. C. 446, merely reflects the parties’ admissions rather than a binding doctrinal statement. The present discussion must therefore turn to the underlying principle governing the allocation of proof. On behalf of the State, counsel argued that an examination of the legislative scheme, particularly the introduction of Explanation (1) to section 3(2)(d), reveals that the legislature intended the court to presume that when an inam grant identifies a named village, the area covered by that grant is to be treated as an estate. This presumption, however, could be rebutted if a party demonstrated that the portions of the village excluded from the major grant had been allotted by the original grantor after the date of the principal grant. It is noteworthy that, prior to the addition of this Explanation, the Madras High Court, in the decision of Narayanaswami Nayadu v. Subramanyan (1), held that because all the documents described the temple as the owner of the entire village, the plaintiff bore the burden of showing that the grant pertained only to the revenue of a portion of the village. Since that burden was not met, the court concluded that Venkatapuram Agraharam constituted an estate despite the presence of minor inams within the village. That decision, rendered in 1915, continued to be followed by the Madras High Court until 1943, when another bench, in the case of Adema v. Satyadhyana Thirtha Swamivaru (2), adopted a contrary approach, holding that unless every parcel of land in the village was expressly included in the grant, the grant could not be deemed to cover the whole village and therefore could not give rise to an estate. This later view was subsequently affirmed in later decisions.

In that same year, the case of Suri Redli v. Agnihotrudu was reported. After the decision, the present Explanation 1 to subsection 3(2)(d) was incorporated by the Madras Estates Land (Amendment) Act II of 1945. The amendment contained a provision that caused it to be treated as having effect from the date on which the Madras Estates Land (Third Amendment) Act, 1936 introduced sub‑clause (d) of clause 2 of section 3. The present form of the provision therefore came into force as if it had operated from that earlier date. The relevant judgments cited in support of this legislative history include the 1915 decision reported in I.L.R. 39 Mad. 683, the 1943 case reported in [1943] 2 M.L.J. 289 and the further 1943 decision reported in [1943] 2 M.L.J. 528.

Counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Ram Reddy, argued that the purpose of the 1945 amending Act was to fully restore the position adopted in Narayanaswami’s case. According to his submission, the definition of an inam village contained in the Explanation meant that any village expressly named in a grant would be presumed to be an inam village and consequently to constitute an “estate” even where certain minor inam grants existed within the same village. He further maintained that this presumption could be rebutted only by showing that the minor inam grants had been created by the grantor of the major inam after the major grant had already been made. He described the argument as attractive and pointed to the observations of Justice Subba Rao in Janakiramaraju v. Appalaswami, where the judge stated that the Explanation was intended to restore the well‑settled law that had been disturbed by the decision in Ademma’s case. Additional passages of the Janakiramaraju judgment, according to Mr. Reddy, seemed to reinforce his view that once an inam grant covered a named village, a rebuttable presumption arose that the village formed an estate.

On a closer examination of the matter, the Court found that it would be an over‑reach to read the Explanation as creating such a blanket presumption. Several considerations made the Court hesitant to accept the view advanced by counsel. The primary reason was that, when the Explanation was added in 1945, the legislature chose not to amend section 23 of the Act. Section 23 still provided that, where it became necessary in any suit or proceeding to determine whether an inam village or a separated part of an inam village was an estate within the meaning of the Act as it stood before the commencement of the Madras Estates Land (Third Amendment) Act, 1936, the village would be presumed to be an estate. If the legislature had intended to introduce the presumption advocated by Mr. Reddy, it could have simply omitted the words “as it stood before the commencement of the Madras Estates Land (Third Amendment) Act, 1936” from section 23, thereby giving immediate effect to the new intention. The absence of such a change indicated that the legislature did not wish to create the broad rebuttable presumption suggested by counsel.

In considering the legislative scheme, the Court observed that the legislature could have introduced an explicit provision stating that “where the grant was expressed to be of a named village the presumption will be that it is an estate until the contrary is shown,” but it chose not to do so. The Court further noted that the language employed in Explanation (1) undermines Mr Reddy’s contention. The final part of the Explanation makes clear that a conclusion that the area constitutes an “estate” may be drawn even when the entire village is not covered by the grant, but only if it is shown that the excluded portion had already been gifted and was therefore lost to the whole. By inserting the last clause, the legislature signaled that it did not intend to extend the reach of the High Court’s construction in the case of Narayanaswami Nayudu. An examination of the historical development of the wording of the Explanation and the circumstances surrounding its addition led the Court to the conclusion that the legislature, fully aware of the difficulties in establishing whether minor grants were made before or after the grant of a named village, deliberately left the issue to be resolved between the parties without creating any statutory presumption in either direction.

Having resolved that no legislative presumption exists, the Court turned to the question of which party bears the burden of proof. It held that the relevant rules of the Evidence Act must govern the allocation of that burden. Section 101 of the Evidence Act requires that a party who seeks a judicial determination of a legal right or liability dependent on certain facts must prove the existence of those facts. Section 102 provides that the burden of proof in any suit or proceeding rests on the person who would fail if no evidence were offered by either side. Section 103 further provides that, unless a statute expressly places the burden on a particular person, the burden of proving any specific fact lies with the party who wishes the Court to accept that fact. Applying these provisions, the Court concluded that the plaintiff, who asked for a declaration that the land covered by title deed 1082 is not an estate, must prove that the area is not an estate. In the absence of any evidence, the plaintiff would inevitably fail. The Court found that there is no legal presumption that the land in question is either an estate or not an estate. Consequently, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the minor inams were granted after the date of the inam grant of the named village. The plaintiff was unable to meet this evidential burden, and therefore the Court held that the plaintiff’s case could not succeed.

In its judgment, the Court explained that it reached a conclusion which, although derived from reasoning that differed from the reasoning accepted by the High Court, nevertheless led to the same ultimate result—that the plaintiff’s suit was properly dismissed. The Court observed that its analytical approach was distinct from that which had found favour with the High Court, but it emphasized that the evidence and legal principles before it did not justify setting aside the earlier dismissal. Consequently, the Court held that the appeal filed by the plaintiff could not succeed and therefore ordered that the appeal be dismissed. In addition, the Court expressly noted that it would not make any order as to the allocation of costs in the proceedings before this Court. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed without any award of costs to either party.