The case of the respondents was that the right of taking water for irrigation purposes free of charge from the said tank had been enjoyed by the holders of land from generation to generation for the last 300 years with the only obligation of keeping the tank in proper repairs; that the tank was the Property of the descendants of the said Kawdu Patel who were recognised as Malguzars of all The aforesaid five villages; that the right of the aforesaid holders of land or appropriating water of the tank was recognised and recorded in the Wajib ul Arz whereunder an obligation was cast on the Malguzars to allow the tenants to irrigate free of charge their lands for rice 166 (dhan) and sugarcane cultivation; that the Malguzars as well as the tenants had thus been using the water of the tank for irrigating their fields and raising crops as of right without any payment either to the State or to any one also; that in the year, 1950, the Madhya Pradesh Legislature passed an Act called "the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals and Alienated Lands) Act, 1980 (Act No. I of 1981)" (hereinafter referred to as 'the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act ' with a view to eliminate the intermediaries (variously called as Malguzars, Zamindars and Jagirdars) between the State and the tillers of the soil and to acquire from a specified date for the purpose of the State free of all encumbrances the rights of properties in estates, mahals, alienated villages and alienated lands comprised in a notified area in Madhya Pradesh; that in the Notification issued under section 3 of the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act, the area vesting in the State was shown as the whole area of the aforesaid villages and the Mahals or Estates comprised therein; that thus the State was substituted in place of Malguzars with the same rights and liabilities; that the only consequence of vesting according to section 4 of the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act was to do away with the encumbrances of mortgages, if any, on proprietary lands and to fasten the same on the amount of compensation payable by the State to the proprietors; that the said vesting which took place as a result of the abolition of Proprietary Rights Act and the Notification issued thereunder did not affect, curtail or extinguish the aforesaid rights of free irrigation of the holders of land in the aforesaid five villages i.e., of the Malguzars who were cultivating their home farm lands or of other persons who were in occupation of lands as occupancy tenants at the time of the coming into force or the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act and on the contrary, sections 45 46 and 47 of the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act preserved those rights; that the right to free irrigation was recognised and recorded at various settlements and in the Wajib ul Arz of 1919; that notwithstanding the enactment and enforcement of the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act, the State continued upto 1964 to recognise The respondents ' right of taking water free of charge for irrigation purposes from the aforesaid tank which had been enjoyed by the respondents and their ancestors for the last 300 years and never made any demand on account of water charges; that the respondents were entitled to take water from the aforesaid tank for such lands as it had been irrigated as per entries in the Wajib ul Arz which is an authentic record of rights of the cultivators of the villages in question; that in November, l 965, the officials of the State Government in charge of the Irrigation Department by reference to section 26 of 167 the Central Provinces Irrigation Act, 1931, which had no relevance.