SAMSUDDIN RAHMAN Vs. BIHARI DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Special leave granted.

(2.) The appellants herein were the plaintiffs in a suit filed in the Court of the Assistant District Judge, Cachar, Silchar against the defendants-respondents herein praying for a decree for declaration of title in respect of the suit land measuring about 60 Bighas, on the basis that it was in their possession and, in the alternative, for possession, if not found in possession. On the other hand, the suit land was claimed by the defendants-respondents to be theirs and in their possession, affirmed by the grant of an annual Patta in their favour of the Deputy Commissioner of the area concerned. The trial Court, while concluding the matter, was about to decree the suit, but refrained from doing so, as in the plaint, no specific claim had been raised by the plaintiffs-appellants to get quashed the grant of the annual Patta, given by the Deputy Commissioner in favour of the defendants-respondents. On appeal by the plaintiffs-appellants to the District Judge, Cachar, Silchur, the hurdle put by the trial Court was cast aside and the suit was decreed on the basis that once title stood proved in favour of the plaintiffs-appellants, the factual grant of annual Patta in favour of the defendants-respondents had no value or sanctity and hence the same could be ignored. The High Court, however, upset the decision of the District Judge, at the instance of the defendants respondents, dismissing the suit of the plaintiffs-appellants altogether, taking the view that the evidence led by the plaintiffs-appellants was deficient to the point of being no evidence at all in the eye of law. It is within this narrow compass that the controversy in the instant appeal stands focused.

(3.) The case of the plaintiffs-appellants, in brief, was that they were the owners of a parcel of land covered by a Patta, particulars of which stand fully described in the judgments of the Courts below. Alongside that parcel of land, a river named Barak used to flow on the Southern and Eastern sides. It was claimed that gradually the river receded, making slow and imperceptible gains as accretions to the land-holding of the appellants, which gain is solidified in the form of the suit land. The appellants on that basis claimed that the suit land had become part and parcel of their original holding and that they had been in possession thereof till the Deputy Commissioner on grant of annual Patta to the contesting respondents, has cast a shadow on their title, which led to proceedings under Section 145, Cr. P. C., necessitating the plaintiffs-appellants to approach the Civil Court for appropriate relief. Besides what has been said before, the contesting defendants-respondents had also countered that the land originally belonged to them and as it had re-emerged on the other side of the river, since it changed its course, it was theirs, and with them under an annual Patta.