RAGHBIR SINGH Vs. BELI RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs Beli Ram and others who are respondents in this Court were in cultivating possession of23 kanals and 11 marlas of land belonging to the appellants Raghbir Singh and Kashmir Singh sons of Kirpa Ram, situate in village Dayara, Tehsil Una. Consolidation procedings took place in village Dayara and as a result, the plaintiffs were left in cultivating possession of only 12 kanals and one marla of land comprised infields Nos-90,91, 92,16/8/3, 2/1, 21!, 24/12 and 8/23/1. Tha dispute in the present litigation relates to this land. The plaintiffs: alleged that they had been in cultivating possession of the suit land since the time of their ancestors, extending over a period of about 200 years, had incurred considerable expense in developing and breaking the land and in erecting their houses on it and that they had been paying only a nomina' rental to the original owners. They, therefore, claimed that they were occupancy tenants and as such entitled to be declared owners of the land by virtue of the provisions contained in the Punjab Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Act VIII of 1953. On these grounds the plaintiffs filed a suit in the court of the Subordinate Judge, Una for a declaration of their title as owners of the land in dispute as against Raghbir Singh and Kashmir Singh, the original owners, and prayed for a mandatory injunction restraining them from interfering with their possession and also from collecting the compensation payable by the Punjab State for 6 kanals and 9 marlas of land which had been acquired by it out of the land in their possession. During the pendency of the suit, the plaintiffs, however, gave up their claim relating to compensation.

(2.) The plaintiffs' suit was resisted by the defendants Raghbir j Singh and Kashmir Singh who pleaded that the plaintiffs were merely tenants-at will and that they continued to be so throughout the period during which they were in occupation of the land in suit.

(3.) On the pleadings of the parties, the trial Court framed the following issues: -