GANGA PRASAD Vs. RAM DAS ALIAS PAPPU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Sri Ramendra Ashtana for the defendant-appellants.

(2.) This is a defendants' appeal against the judgment and order dated 24.02.2014 passed by the Additional District Judge, Court No.5, Agra in Civil Appeal No. 166 of 2012 by which the order dated 18.07.2011 passed by the Additional Civil Judge (Jr. Div.), Court No.2, Agra in Original Suit No. 719 of 2008, deciding issue No. 8 against the plaintiffs, has been set aside and the matter has been remanded back to the trial court to decide the suit on merits.

(3.) A perusal of the record reveals that Original Suit No. 719 of 2008 was instituted by the plaintiff-respondents against the defendant-appellants for cancellation of sale-deed dated 04.06.2007 executed by Deepchand (father of the plaintiffs) on ground that the sale-deed was got executed by coercion and by playing fraud on him. It was alleged that the defendants had abducted Deepchand, forcibly got him to execute the sale deed and, thereafter, murdered him, in which connection a first information report was lodged. The defendants filed written statement taking various pleas including that the suit was not maintainable at the instance of the plaintiffs inasmuch as it was not established that Deepchand was dead and since seven years had not passed since the date of execution of the sale deed up to the date of institution of the suit, his civil death could not be presumed. In addition to above, it was pleaded by the defendants that the suit was barred by section 331 of the U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act, inasmuch as, the property to which the sale deed related was agricultural land and, pursuant to the sale-deed in question, the names of the defendants stood mutated in the revenue record therefore, without seeking declaration of rights over the property, no relief could be granted by a civil court and as revenue court alone has power to declare bhumidhari rights, under section 229-B of the UP ZA & LR Act, suit was not maintainable before the civil court.