SHANKAR Vs. RAM SARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal under clause 10 of Letters Patent is directed against the order of the learned single Judge of this Court accepting the two Second Appeals of the respondents (RSA. Nos. 133 and 134 of 1967) from the judgment and decree of the senior Subordinate Judge, Kangra, and directing that civil suits for possession filed against them by the present appellants in the Court of Subrodinate Judge, IV Class, Hamirpur, be dismissed.

(2.) The appellants before us and their predecessors-in-interest (hereinafter called the tenants) held lands which formed the subject matter of the civil suits, out of which this appeal has arisen, as tenants of the respondents and their predecessors-in-interest (who are hereinafter called the landlords) under the provisions of Punjab Tenancy (Act SVI of 1887). On the allegations that they were forcibly dispossessed by the landlords on October 6, 1958, the tenants filed suit No. 1 of 1958 under section 50 of the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 (hereinafter called the Act) in the revenue Court of Assistant Collector, Hamirpur, on November 24, 1958, for recovery of possession of these lands. The landlords contested this suit on the ground that the plaintiff-tenants had in fact, of their own accord, given up cultivation of the lands with effect from the Rabi season of 1956 and the landlords had thereupon entered into possession of the same and that there was no forcible dispossession, as alleged, and further that the suit having been filed after the expiry of one year of their ceasing to be in possession was barred by time. The Revenue Court framed the following issues:

(3.) After going through the evidence produced before him, the learned Assistant Collector by his order dated 18/11/1959, found that the tenants themselves had left cultivation of this land in the year 1956 and there was no forcible dispossession. He also held that the suit instituted by these tenants after the expiry of one year from the date when they ceased to be in possession was barred by time under Section 50 of the Act. Aggrieved from this order, the tenants went up in appeal, but it was also dismissed by the Collector on March 31, 1960. Thereupon, the tenants filed two suits, Nos. 151 and 153, of 1960, in the civil Court of Subordinate Judge, IV Class, Hamirpur, on substantially the same allegation as were made by them in the revenue Court. The landlords contested these suits also and set up the same defence which they had urged before the revenue Court and in addition further pleaded that the dismissal of their suit by the revenue Court was a bar to the maintainability of the present suits in the civil Court and that the decision of the revenue Court operated as res judiccita between the parties. The learned Subordinate Judge trying these two suits consolidated them as they involved common questions of law and fact and by a common judgment dated 28/8/1961, found that the tenants who had not acquired occupancy rights in the lands in suit had been forcibly dispossessed by the landlords on October 6, 1958, as alleged by them, and that they were entitled to recover possession from the landlords. He also held that the decision of the revenue Court was not a bar to the two civil suits because these suits had been filed by the tenants more than one year after their dispossession and as such could not be treated as suits under section 50 and were therefore not barred by section 77 (3)'(g) of the Act. On these findings he granted a decree for possession of the lands in favour of the tenants against the landlords. Aggrieved from this the landlords went up in appeal, but it was also dismissed by the learned Senior Subordinate Judge with enhanced appellate powers and hence the Second Appeal to the learned single Judge which he accepted by the order under appeal.