VIZAGAPATAM.
As elsewhere, the value of the suits tried by the village munsifs is seldom above Rs. 20. The system of trial by Bench Courts under section 9 of the Village Courts Act I of 1889 has been introduced in seventeen of the larger villages. There are now six district munsifs; namely, at Yellamanchili with jurisdiction over the taluks of Sarvasiddhi and Golgonda; Vizionagram, for Vizianagram and Gajapatinagaram; Chódavaram, for Víravilli and Srungavarapukóta; Párvatípur, for Párvatípur, Bobbili and Sálúr ; Vizagapatam, for Vizagapatam, Bimlipatam and Anakápalle; and Rázám, for Chípurupalle and Pálkonda. The Chódavaram munsif was transferred to that station from Bimlipatam in 1889, in which year a redistribution of the munsifs' charges was carried out.
The jurisdiction of the District Court extends over all but the agency portion of the district.
Including the Agency, Vizagapatam is almost the least litigious area in Madras. The number of suits filed is only one for every 275 of the population against one for every 117 in the Presidency as a whole, and Anantapur is the only district in which the proportion is lower. This result is due partly to the poverty of the mass of the population, partly to the fact that the numerous inhabitants of the hills have not yet acquired the taste for squabbling over their rights in the courts, and partly to the marked infrequency of suits under the Tenancy Act. Though nine-tenths of the district is zamindari land, a ten years' average of the cases filed under that enactment in this district works out to less than 200, while in Kistna and Tanjore, with far smaller areas of zamindari estates, it was eight times that number.
The Registration Act does not extend to the Agency. Outside that area, the registration of assurances is managed on the usual lines. Besides the District Registrar at Vizagapatam there are thirteen sub -registrars, who are stationed at the head- quarters of the remaining ten non-agency deputy tahsildars and of the three tahsildars.
The criminal tribunals are of the same classes as elsewhere. The village magistrates in the three Government taluks possess the usual powers in respect to petty cases arising within their villages, and in an ordinary year about half of them make use of these. Benches of magistrates in the four municipalities of Anakápalle, Bimlipatam, Vizagapatam and vizianagram possess the usual powers with respect to certain minor kinds of offences committed within those places. The Towns Nuisances Act has been extended to seventeen other villages and is also put in
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