Judgment :- 1. The above Second Appeal has been filed by the plaintiff in O.S. No. 325 of 1977, on the file of the District Munsif Court, Tirupattur North Arcot District, who succeeded before the trial court, but lost before the first appellate court, against the judgment and decree of the learned Subordinate Judge, dated 8.3.1983 in A.S. No. 54 of 1982, reversing the judgment and decree of the trial court and dismissing the suit. 2. The case of the plaintiff/appellant before the trial court was that the properties comprised in S. No. 255/6 belonged to the plaintiff and the 2nd defendant jointly; that in the well and the channel for taking water from the said well, the plaintiff is entitled to 1/5th share; that the common channel can be used for irrigating the lands of the 2nd defendant and the plaintiff alone that the 1st defendant is the wife of the 2nd defendant and the other defendants are the children of defendants 1 and 2 and the 1st defendant is trying to take water from the well situated in her land in S. No. 275/5 through the common channel and in spite of objections by the appellant, the defendants persisted in doing so which necessitated the filing of the suit in question for declaration of plaintiffs 1/5th right and share in S. No. 255/6 and the right to take water from the well W1 through the common channel and for permanent injunction restraining the defendants from taking water from well in S. No. 257/5 through the common channel in S. No. 255/6. 3. Defendants 1 and 2 have filed a written statement contending that the plaintiff is entitled to only 1/5th share in the well situated in S. No. 255/6 and that plaintiff is not entitled to prevent the defendants 1 and 2 from taking water through the common channel to their other lands; that the common well situated in S. No. 255/6 is in a dilapidated condition and was in disuse for the past ten years prior to the suit and there is no merit whatsoever in the objection taken by the plaintiff and the suit is liable to be dismissed. 4. On the above claims and counterclaims the suit was tried and both parties adduced oral and documentary evidence in support of their respective claims. 4. On the above claims and counterclaims the suit was tried and both parties adduced oral and documentary evidence in support of their respective claims. The learned trial judge, by his judgment and decree, dated 12.2.1982, decreed the suit as prayed for holding that the defendants have no right to take water from the well marked as W2 through the common channel to their other lands and the attempt of the defendants to do so is in violation of the rights of the plaintiff, and since the defendants have purchased the land in which W2 well is situated only in the year 1962, the defendants could not be said to have acquired any easementary right to take such water through the common channel. Aggrieved, the defendants pursued the matter before the Sub Court, Tirupattur, North Arcot District. The learned first appellate Judge had also gone into the matter in great detail and in the light of the oral and documentary evidence, came to a conclusion different from the one arrived at by the learned trial Judge and while allowing the appeal, ordered dismissal of the suit filed by the plaintiff. The learned first appellate Judge was of the view that the earlier proceedings between the plaintiff and the 1st defendant, marked as ex. B1 and Ex. B2, disclosed that plaintiff had only 1/5th share in the well and the right to take water through the common channel; that the plaintiff himself admitted during the evidence the right of the 2nd defendantto 4/5th share in the well and also the common channel, and the report of the Commissioner goes to show that the common well W1 was in a dilapidated condition and not in actual use and even PW. 2 had to admit that the water was being taken from W2 well for the past ten years prior to the date of such evidence and that therefore, the plaintiff has not substantiated any prejudice or damage to him by the defendants taking water from W2 well through the common channel to their lands. Reliance was also placed by the first appellate court on the decision of a learned single Judge of this court, reported in AIR 1973 Madras 42= (1972) 85 L.W. 659 in coming to the conclusion that the judgment of the trial court is liable to be set aside. 5. Reliance was also placed by the first appellate court on the decision of a learned single Judge of this court, reported in AIR 1973 Madras 42= (1972) 85 L.W. 659 in coming to the conclusion that the judgment of the trial court is liable to be set aside. 5. Aggrieved the plaintiff has come before this court by way of the above Second Appeal. Mr. V. Srinivasan, learned counsel appearing for the appellant while reiterating the stand taken before the courts below and the substantial question of law formulated at the time of admission of the appeal, contended that the principles laid down in AIR 1973 Madras 42= (1972)85 L.W. 659 will have no application to the case on hand, that the benefits of a coowner arising out of a common well and a common channel cannot be extended on the ground of relationship (in this case the 1st defendant being the wife of the 2nd defendant who alone is said to be the coowner) and that the provisions of S. 18 of the Easement Act, to claim any right of customary easement, cannot enure to the case of the defendants since indisputably the property in which the well W2 is situated was purchased only in the year 1962 and the same does not confer any easementary right on the defendants. In order to substantiate the claim that no easementary right as such has been conferred or derived under any of the documents of title by way of grant, on the side of the appellant an application in C.M.P. No. 3833 of 1996 has been filed under Order 41, Rules 27, CPC in this appeal to receive five documents of which four are sale deeds and one an adangal extract, as additional documents, to be marked in evidence. Mr. S. Krishnasway, learned counsel for the respondents adopted the reasoning of the first appellate court and supported the judgment on the factual findings recorded therein as also the ratio laid down in AIR 1973 Madras 42= (1972)85 L.W. 659 and (1985) I MLJ 36=(1986)99 L.W. 5 (SC) It is, the specific and categorical stand of the learned counsel for the respondents that he is not supporting his claim on the basis of any grant under any document. In view of the said stand, I am of the view that it is unnecessary to receive or entertain the additional evidence sought to be adduced at the Second Appellate stage only to show that the documents of title also do not disclose the grant of any such easementary right or right to take water through the common channel by the defendants. On this ground alone I consider the claim for allowing additional evidence to be not only unnecessary, but also untenable and liable to be rejected. Consequently. C.M.P. No. 3833 of 1996 shall stand rejected. 5 -A. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel appearing on either side in the light of the different findings recorded by the courts below and the evidence on record as also the two judicial pronouncements relied upon for the respondents to support the judgment of the first appellate court, which is under challenge in the Second Appeal. I have myself verified Ex. C1 and Ex. C2, the report and plan of the Commissioner, and also gone through the evidence of P.Ws. 1 and 2 which is very much relied upon by the first appellate court to reject the claim of the plaintiffs. 6. The decision in Subbiah Gounder v. Ramaswamy Gounder (AIR 1973 Madras 42= (1972)85 L.W. 659 ) is the one rendered by a learned single Judge while disposing of the claim by a defendant who wanted to use the common channel for taking water to his fields from his exclusively owned well and the plaintiff filed the suit for an injunction to prevent the defendant from making such user of the common well. After adverting to the earlier decisions of this Court on the subject, the learned single judge held that each of the coowner of a common property is entitled to use the property in the way most advantageous and beneficial to him without, at the same time, causing any injury or detriment to the other coowners and it is not for one coowner to dictate in what manner the other coowner should enjoy the common property so long as the user of the common property by one coowner does not materially interfere with the use of the property by the objecting coowner or is shown to affect their rights or in any way weaken, damage or injure the common property. Observed the learned judge further that when the plaintiff neither alleged nor proved that by the use of the common channel by the one coowner to take water from their exclusive well, they were in any way prejudiced, one of the coowners cannot prevent the others from using the common channel in the way most beneficial to them during their turn of enjoyment. The decision in Ayyaswami Gounder v. Munuswamy Gounder (1985 1 MLJ 36=(1986)99 L.W. 5 (SC) is that of the apex court wherein the dispute between coowners in respect of right of one to use the common land and the common channel came up for adjudication. That was a case wherein the appellants before the Supreme Court filed a suit before the trial court for declaration of their right to take water from their exclusive well, and situated in a plot of land which exclusively belonged to them through a portion of the common channel to their plots situated away from the common well in the joint land and for consequential relief of injunction restraining the respondent/defendant in that case from interfering with such enjoyment of the right to take water from their exclusive well through the common channel. The learned Judges of the apex court considered the two decisions of this Court reported in AIR 1973 Madras 42=85 L.W. 659 (cited supra), relied upon by the first appellate court, as also by the learned counsel for the respondent in this Court and the earlier decision reported in 1970-I-MLJ 376=85 L.W. 659 and the ratio laid down in the two decisions. Apart from the peculiar facts of the case before the Supreme Court based on the division and even de hors the question of any right of easement, the issue has been considered from the point of view of rights of a coowner by virtue of such coownership alone. The Court ultimately held as follows: “We find considerable force in this contention. In the absence of any specific pleading regarding prejudice or detriment to the defendants respondents the plaintiffs have every right to use the common land and the common channel. The Court ultimately held as follows: “We find considerable force in this contention. In the absence of any specific pleading regarding prejudice or detriment to the defendants respondents the plaintiffs have every right to use the common land and the common channel. The plaintiffs/Appellants were claiming their right on the basis of admitted coownership rights which includes unrestricted user, unlimited in point of disposition, and the High Court was not justified in holding that the plaintiffs right to take water was not acquired by any g rant from the defendants respondents or from any other sale deed. The right of coownership presupposes a bundle of rights which has been lost sight of by the High Court. The only restriction put by law on the common user of land by a coowner is that it should not be so used as to prejudicially affect or put the other coowner to a detriment. .. The defendants indeed are adopting a ‘dog in the manger policy. Although they do not stand to be prejudiced or put to any detriment on their own pleadings, they seek to prevent the plaintiffs from irrigating their lands through the common channel from their exclusive well. There is no other source of irrigation for the plaintiffs. .. There is yet another reason why we would be reluctant to encourage the defendants to stop the plaintiffs from irrigating their fields from their own exclusive well through the common channel. In these days of scarcity when every effort is being made at all levels to increase the agricultural production to feed the countrys teeming millions it would not be desirable to allow the defendants to create any hurdle in the irrigation of the plaintiffs plots through the common channel from their exclusive well. Thus, neither the law nor expediency warrants a conclusion as desired by the defendants.” 7. Thus, neither the law nor expediency warrants a conclusion as desired by the defendants.” 7. As noticed earlier, the learned counsel for the appellant forcibly contended to distinguish the decision rendered in AIR 1973 Madras 42=85 L.W. 659(cited supra) on the ground that unlike the facts of the case therein, in the case concerned in this appeal, it is not a case of one coowner, from his exclusive well trying to take water by using the common channel in exercise of his right as a coowner, that is in question, but the right of the 1st defendant herself not a coowner but who happens to be the wife of the 2nd defendant, a coowner trying to take water from her exclusive well to other lands through the common channel, and this vital distinction on the facts would render the decision in AIR 1973 Madras 1942=85 L.W. 659 wholly inapplicable to the present case. In my view, the subtle distinction sought to be made to exclude the applicability of the ratio of the decision in AIR 1973 Madras 42=85 L.W. 659, to the case on hand can be said to be neither substantial nor relevant or of any merit. Merely because the well is situated in land shown to have been purchased by the 1st defendant who is no other than the wife of the 2nd defendant who is indisputably a coowner with the plaintiff, it would be only a futile attempt in vain to contend that the user of the common well is not permissible at all on the ground that the 1st defendant from whose well water is sought to be taken through the common channel is herself not a co-owner. As wife of a co-owner, leave alone the question of her being inevitably part of the family there can be not much of a difference between the right of the coowner or the right of the wife of the co-owner as long as the wife happens to be part and parcel of the family of the coowner and the properties are enjoyed in common by the co-owner and his wife. In my view, the attempt of the plaintiff appears to be a mere perpetuation of the earlier enmity disclosed through the earlier proceedings between parties and adopting an attitude of an objector for objection sake to cause detriment to the interest of the defendants particularly the 2nd defendant coowner who indisputably owns 4/5th of the right as against only 1/5th of right said to be held by the plaintiff in the common well, leave alone the factual finding as recorded by the first appellate court on the basis of the report of the Commissioner that the common well itself is in a dilapidated and disused condition. It is this type of attitude on the part of a coowner that the Supreme Court has chosen to castigate in the judgment referred to supra as adopting a “dog in the manger” policy. In my view on the factual findings recorded by the first appellate court, which cannot be successfully dislodged in spite of the best efforts made by the learned counsel for the appellant, the ratio of the decisions of this court as also that of the Supreme Court referred to above would squarely apply to the case on hand notwithstanding the fact that the common well from which water is sought to be taken through the common channel stands on re cord in the name of the wife of the 2nd defendant who is indisputably a coowner. 8. For all the reasons stated above, I do not find any merit in the challenge made to the judgment and decree of the first appellate court and in my view no interference is warranted in the Second Appeal, at the instance of the appellant. The Second Appeal therefore fails and shall stand dismissed. No costs.