JANAKI AMMAL Vs. MOOLAICHAMY SERVAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff is the appellant. She filed the suit for declaration of little to the suit property and for recovery of possession of the same from the defendant. Her case was that the suit property originally formed part of a Devadasi Maniba and that she purchased it after it had been enfranchised under Exs. A-3 and A-7 in the year 1960 by virtue of a sale deed. Ex. A-1 dated 17-4-1961 from the last service-holder Thangammal. The complaint of the plaintiff is that the defendant is asserting title to the suit property and is resisting the claim of the title of the plaintiff. The defendant resisted the suit contending that the suit land was originally waste that it was reclaimed by the predecessors-in-interest and that they had been in possession right through. It is his definite case that neither the plaintiff nor her vendor was in possession of the suit property at any time. He claimed that the suit property came to be allotted to him in a partition in his family. He also claimed that he had acquired title by adverse possession to the suit property.

(2.) THE trial court held that the suit property was a Devadasi Manibam, that there was alienation by the last service-holder after the property had been enfranchised in the year 1960 and that therefore the plaintiff's title to the suit property should be upheld. The trial court also held that the defendant had not perfected title by adverse possession, as the documents produced in the case showed that the defendant's possession started only from 1942. In the result the trial court decreed the suit as prayed for by the plaintiff.

(3.) THE lower appellate court agreed with the view of the trial court that the suit property formed part of a Devadasi Manibam, that it had been duly enfranchised under Exs. A-3 and A-7 and that the plaintiff got valid title under Ex. A-1 the sale deed executed by the last service holder, Thangammal. The lower appellate court, however, disagreed with the trial court and held that the defendant had acquired title by adverse possession as against the service-holder, as the documents produced in the case clearly established that the defendant continued to be in exclusive possession from the year 1942.