ANDHRA PRADESH HIGH COURT
Boppudi Punniah
Vs
Lakshmi Narasimhaswamy Varu
(Chandra Reddy, C.J.)
28.02.1963
Chandra Reddy, C.J.
( 1. ) THE meaing and effect of section 4 of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Inams Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari Act (XXXVII of 1956) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is the subject of discussion in these Writ Petitions. This Act was passed in the year 1956 to abolish and convert certain inam land into ryotwari lands. Section 3 of the Act empowers the concerned Tahsildar to decide whether a particular piece of land within his jurisdiction is an inam land and, if so, whether it is held by any institution It is section 4 of the Act that provides the machinery for abolition of the inam lands and converting them into ryotwari lands. By virtue of this section, every holder of an inam, be it in a ryotwari or a zamindari village, is entitled to a ryotwari patta.
( 2. ) TAHSILDARS of the various parts of the Andhra area started enquiries
contemplated by section 3 cf the Act. We are here concerned only with inams
that form the subject-matter of the present enquiry. At the enquiry concerning
these inams, rival claims were put forward by the institutions and certain
persons claiming to be either as persona] grantees or as service holders in the
particular temples. After holding the enquiries as required by section 3, the
concerned TAHSILDARS gave their decisions upholding the claims of either the
institutions or the individuals. These adjudications were subject to appeals
before the Revenue Divisional Officers, who are constituted as appellate
tribunals under sub-section (4) of section 3. In some cases, the Revenue
Divisional Officers affirmed the orders of the TAHSILDARS while in others they
reversed them. The aggrieved parties have invoked the jurisdiction of this
Court under Article 226 of the Constitution to remove on certiorari the
determination of the Revenue Divisional Officers. Before we discuss the problem created
by section 4 of the Act, we have to advert to the nature of the inams in the
several Writ Petitions. At the outset, it has to be mentioned that though the
orders passed by the Revenue Divisional Officers in four instances rejecting
the claims of the institutions for ryotwari pattas were challenged by filing
writ petitions, in W.P. Nos. 739 and 856 of 1960, and 552 and 1228 of 1961 the
learned Advocate-General appearing for the institutions submitted that the
adjudications of the Revenue Divisional Officers could not be successfully
impeached, having regard to the relevant entries in the extracts from the Inam
Fair Register and the confirmation of the inams to named individuals which
bring them within the scope of section 4. He, therefore, did not press the writ
petition but he wanted that a clause should be introduced in the pattas to the
effect that they are issued to the respondents subject to the obligation to
perform the services. To this course the respondents are agreeable. We have now to deal with the other
inam lands, the pattas in regard to which have been claimed either by the
institutions or by other persons claiming to be inamdars. All the inams
involved in these Writ Petitions are described as " devadayams" The
expression " devadayam ", by itself, does not import that it
constituted a grant to the institution. It only means that it is a gift fnr a
religious purpose, i.e., a purpose connected with religion. As pointed out by
Ramesam, J,, who spoke for the Court in Tripura Sundaramma v. Secretary of
State, A.I.R. 1928 Mad. 282, when the British Government dealt with inams in
1859, they appointed an Inam Commission for enquiring into the genuineness of
the inams so that they might be recognised and confirmed or not as the case
required. They dealt with both classes of cases, namely, the grants to temples
and mosques and grants to servants on condition of rendering services in
temples and mosques together. Their policy was not to impose quit-rent on them
but to recognise and continue the inam so long as the conditions of the grant
were being fulfilled, that is, in the case of grants to mosques or temples, as
long as the institutions themselves lasted, and, in the case of grants on
condition of services, as long as the services continued to be performed. Both
being directly or indirectly connected with religion both classes are
indiscriminately described as " devadayam ". The inams of this
description fall into three classes, namely, (i) grants to the institution,
(ii) grants to an office to serve as emoluments annexed to that office, and
(iii) grants to named individuals burdened with service. The inams belonging to
classes (i) and (iii) do not present much difficulty in the present context. It
is the problem connected with the second category that we have to wrestle with
here. The inams belonging to classes (i) and (iii) are not many in these
petitions and, therefore, they could be easily disposed of. In W.P. Nos. 739 of
1960, 856 of 1960, 522 of 1961 and 1226 of 1961, it was conceded that the inams
in question were personal grants and therefore the institutions could not lay
any claim to them. In that view of the matter, those petitions were dismissed
as withdrawn on 12th February, 1963 as already stated.
( 3. ) IN regard to a few of them, a claim is made on behalf of named
individuals that the inams pertained to the third category. This is the
subject-matter of W.P. Nos. 836, 837, 838, 839 of 1961 and W.P. No. 877 of
1962. IN all these cases, both the INam Tahsildar and the Appellate Tribunal
accepted the title of the institutions to these inams, rejecting the claim of
the petitioners. It is to quash these orders that these writ petitions were
filed in this Court. The short
question that falls for consideration in these writ petitions is whether the
inams could be described as grants to persons fulfilling a particular capacity,
i.e., to persons holding a particular office in the temple of Sri
Varahalakshminarasimhaswamy, Singarayakonda , Nellore district. The contention
urged on behalf of the petitioners that they were grants made to named
individuals subject to the obligation of rendering a particular service is
mainly founded on the entries in columns 13,16 and 17 wherein the names of the
original grantees and the names of persons enjoying the properties at the time
of the inam enquiry are given. These columns mention the names of the original
grantees as also those of the owners at the relevant time. ;