SUGHAR SINGH Vs. PUTTA SINGH AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This a Plaintiff's appeal arising out of a suit for injunction and for damages. The Plaintiff is the tenant of a plot No. 183. Adjacent to that plot is plot No. 201 belonging to the Defendants which has a well. The Plaintiff claims that he has a right to irrigate his plot No. 183 from the well in plot No. 201. It was contended in the suit that in March 1947 he started sowing tobacco in his plot and proceeded to irrigate it from the well, but that the Defendants did not allow him to do so with the result that has tobacco crop failed and he suffered a loss of Rs. 200/ -. This amount was claimed is damages in the suit in which a prayer for the issue of an injunction was also made. The suit was contested on various grounds and it was pleaded that the Plaintiff had no right to irrigate his land from the Defendants' well and that they had caused no obstruction so as to bring about the loss said to have been suffered by the Plaintiff. The liability to pay damages was also denied.

(2.) The learned Munsif held that the Plaintiff had acquired a right of easement to irrigate his plot from the Defendants' well and that he suffered damages because of the wrongful obstruction caused by the Defendants. The damages were assessed at Rs. 75/ -. Accordingly the Plaintiff's suit for the issue of an injunction and for Rs. 75/ - as damages was decreed. On appeal, the lower appellate court found that the Plaintiff had been irrigating his plot from the well in the Defendant's plot for a considerably long time but from the entries relating to the year 1352F it appeared that the Plaintiff had irrigated his plot from some other well. It appears that one of the Plaintiff's witnesses admitted at the trial that there was a well in the plot of one Jwala Ahir also in the neighbourhood, and the lower appellate court found that in 1352F the Plaintiff had irrigated his field from the well in Jwala Ahir's plot. The year 1352F ended on 30-5-1945. Therefore during the year commencing from July 1944 the Plaintiff did not irrigate his field from the Defendants' well but from another well. The present suit was filed on 15-4-1947. Consequently the enjoyment of the right ceased prior to the commencement of the period of two years before the institution of the suit. Having regard to the provision of Section 15 of the Indian Easement Act, the court below took the view that the Plaintiff had failed to establish the right claimed by him.

(3.) Section 26 of the Indian Limitation Act also provides how a right of easement may be acquired. Section 15 of the Indian Easements Act and Section 26 of the Indian Limitation Act both provide that the period of 20 years shall be taken to be a period ending within two years next before the institution of the suit wherein the claim to which such period relates is contested. In the present case, it has been found that though the Plaintiff (sic)d enjoyed the right for a period exceeding (sic)rs, the period of his enjoyment had ended prior to the two years next before the institution of the suit.