JUDGMENT 1. This is an Appeal by the Plaintiffs in a suit for declaration of a right of easement to have discharged on their own land the surplus water of the land of the Defendant. The Plaintiffs and the Defendant are adjoining owners of land. It has been found that the Defendant used to discharge upon the land of the Plaintiffs, the surplus water of his tank through a channel on his own property. Recently the Defendant has filled up this channel, with the result that the water does not any longer How into the land of the Plaintiffs. The present suit has been instituted substantially with a view to compel the Defendant to restore the channel to its original condition and to discharge as before the surplus water of his land through this channel upon the land of the Plaintiffs. The Court of first instance made a decree in favour of the Plaintiffs. Upon appeal, the Subordinate Judge has dismissed the suit on the ground that the Plaintiffs have not established a right enforceable under the law. The question for decision, consequently, is whether the Plaintiffs have acquired the right of easement claimed. It is an elementary doctrine that an easement exists for the benefit of the dominant tenement alone and that the servient owner acquires no right to insist on its continuance or to ask for damages on its abandonment. This principle was laid down by Cockburn, C. J. in the case of Mason v. Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway Company L. R. 6 Q. B. 578 at p. 587 (1871) in the following terms: It is of the essence of an easement that it exists for the benefit of the dominant tenement alone. Being in its very nature a right created for the benefit of the dominant owner, its exercise by him cannot operate to create a new right for the benefit of the servient owner. Like any other right, its exercise may be discontinued, if it becomes onerous or ceases to be beneficial to the party entitled." The same principle had been previously recognized in the cases of Arkwright v. Gell 5 M. & W. 203 (1839) and Graved v. Martyn 19 C. B. (N. S.) 732, 758 (1865) and was subsequently formulated in similar terms by Lord Watson in the case of Simpson v. Godmanchester Corporation [1897] A. C. 696.. We further find that the proposition was recently accepted as settled law in the cases of M'Evoy v. The Great Northern Railway Company [1900] 2 I R. 325. and Hanna v. Pollock [1900] 2 I. R. 664 The rule was also applied by this Court in the case of Khoorshed Hossein v. Teknarain Singh 2 C L. R. 141 (1878). But much stress has been laid upon the decision in Kena Mahomed v. Bohatoo Sircar Marsh 506 (1863);. In that case, it was stated that if the act of which the Plaintiff complained was the prevention of the FLOW of the mire surface drainage not flowing in any channel but percolating through or flowing over the surface and ultimately finding its way into the lower land of the Plaintiff, that was a matter in which no prescriptive right could be acquired and there was no foundation for the claim of the Plaintiff. This proposition cannot be controverter on principle. But then follows this statement:-" A prescriptive right to such waters could only be acquired when the water had reached and flowed in some defined channel, whether natural or artificial, into the Defendant's land." If the learned Judges intended to lay down that the fundamental principle that an easement exists for the benefit of the dominant tenement alone and that the servient owner acquires no right to insist on its continuance, ceases to be applicable when the water has flowed in a defined channel on the dominant tenement before it reaches the servient tenement, we are unable to accept; this exposition of the law as well-founded on reason. There is, so far as we can discover, no authority to support it, and no intelligible reason has been assigned in this Court in support of the alleged distinction. We are of opinion, therefore, that the Plaintiffs have acquired no right of easement under which they can compel the Defendant to discharge upon their land the surplus water of his land through a channel thereon. 2. The result is that the decree of the Court below is affirmed and this Appeal dismissed with costs.