GULABI Vs. RAM AUTAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY means of the aforesaid application the defendant-respondents have prayed that the aforesaid second appeal may be declared as abated under Section 5 (2) of the Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953.

(2.) THE relevant facts, in brief, are that the plaintiff-appellant filed a Suit No. 887 of 1974 for the cancellation of the sale-deed on the ground that she wanted to execute a deed of Will in favour of her daughter but the defendant-respondent No. 3 by playing fraud upon her obtained her thumb impression on a sale-deed. THE suit was contested by the defendants who filed their written state ment and denied the allegations made in the plaint. THE trial court decreed the plaintiffs suit by holding that the sale- deed dated 10. 7. 1974 was procured by the defendants by playing fraud upon the plaintiff-appellant. THE lower appellate court," however, allowed the defendants' appeal and set aside the decree passed by the trial court and dismissed the plaintiff s suit. Aggrieved, the plaintiff-appellant has preferred the above noted second appeal in this court which is pending.

(3.) BEFORE proceeding to consider the respective submissions made by learned counsel for the parties, it would be appropriate to quote Section 5 (2) of the U. P. Consolidation of Holdings Act under which the present application has been filed. The said section reads as follows:- "s. 5 (2) Upon the said publication of the notification under sub-section (2) of Section 4 the following further consequences shall ensue in the area to which the notification relates namely- (a) every proceeding for the correction of records and every suit and proceeding in respect of declaration of rights or interest in any land lying in the area, or for declaration or adjudication for any other right in regard to which proceedings can or ought to be taken under this Act, pend ing before any Court or authority whether of the first instance or of appeal, reference or revision, shall, on an order being passed in that behalf by the Court or authority before whom such suit or proceeding is pending, stand abated. . . . " From the aforesaid provisions quoted above, it would be evident that the ob ject of Section 5 (2) of the Consolidation of Holdings Act as it stands at present, is clearly to abate suits and other proceedings for correction of records, declaration of rights or interest in any land which are pending before any court or authority or in appeal or revision. Therefore, what emerges is that if a matter can be gone into in consolidation proceedings then a suit in respect of that matter must be abated under Section 5 (2) of the Consolida tion of Holdings Act.