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1953 DIGILAW 134 (KER)

Velayudhan Pillai v. Asirvadom Nadar

1953-09-29

M.S.MENON

body1953
Judgment :- 1. The rights claimed in this second appeal are a right of way and a right of drainage. Prayers (a) and (b) of the plaint deal with those rights and are worded as follows: 2. Both the rights have been concurrently negatived by the courts below and as far as the right of way is concerned I see no reason to disturb the decision. 3. The right of drainage claimed, however, stands on a different footing as the lower courts have proceeded on a misapprehension of the law bearing on the subject. The plaintiff's property is on a higher level and the rights that consequently accrue in his favour have been clearly laid down by the Privy Council in Gibbons v. Lenfertey, AIR 1915 PC 165. "Where two contiguous fields, one of which stands upon higher ground than the other, belong to different properties, nature itself may be said to constitute a servitude on the inferior tenement, by which it is obliged to receive the water which falls from the superior. If the water, which would otherwise fall from the higher grounds insensibly, without hurting the inferior tenement, should be collected into one body by the owner of the superior in the natural use of his property for draining or otherwise improving it the owner of the inferior is, without the positive constitution of any servitude, bound to receive that body of water on his property." 4. The plaintiff has canalised the draining of the rain water through the sluice marked CD in the plan, Ext. B. and the complaint of the defendants is not that such canalising will affect them adversely but that the plaintiff has no right to do so. 5. "The natural right of drainage to discharge surface water possessed by the upper heritor cannot be limited merely to the natural regulation of the water, according to the law of gravitation, which allows it to find its way down to the lower tenements in changing channels or promiscuous spills. It includes a right to collect in a body all the natural surface water which may be found on a tenement, and to discharge it down, without causing more injury than it would have caused by its natural unregulated flow. It includes a right to collect in a body all the natural surface water which may be found on a tenement, and to discharge it down, without causing more injury than it would have caused by its natural unregulated flow. The lower owner has no cause for complaint if he receives without additional injury the upper water in a body instead of receiving it in its diffused natural state." Goshi, Easements and Licenses, page 346). 6. As stated above there is no threat in this case of any additional injury by the canalising of the rain water and the second appeal as far as the right of drainage claimed is concerned has hence to be allowed. I shall make no order as to costs. Partly allowed.