SHANTI PRASAD Vs. MAHABIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application in revision has been referred to a Full Bench in order to secure an authoritative decision on the question whether when determining the valuation of a suit for possession of land, for purposes of jurisdiction it is necessary to take into account the value of garden and building which stand on the land.

(2.) The facts so far as they are necessary for our present purpose are not in dispute. Chaudhary Baldep Singh was the owner of the properties mentioned in lists 'A' & 'B' of the plaint. The property in list 'A' consists of 13 bighas 6 biswas pokhta of zamindari land, while the property in list 'B' consists of a house. Chaudhary Baldeo Singh died in 1901 leaving a widow, Srimati Parbati. She transferred the land and the house in dispute to the predecessor of the defendants. After her death, the plaintiff Chaudhary Mahabir Singh filed a suit for possession over the land and the house on the ground that he was the nearest reversioner of Chaudhary Baldeo Singh and the transfer made by Srimati Parbati in favour of the defendant's predecessor being without consideration and without legal necessity was not binding upon him. He filed the suit in the Court of the Munsif whose pecuniary jurisdiction extended to Rs. 5,000. According to him the value of the land and the house taken together was less than Rs. 5,000/- and the suit was therefore entertainable by the Munsif.

(3.) The defendants contested the suit and pleaded inter alia that the suit had been undervalued and, if properly valued, could not have been filed in the Court of the Munsif. They said that they had spent a considerable amount in constructing a well, houses and a garden on the land mentioned in list 'A', and had also improved the house mentioned in list 'B'. If the value of the buildings and the garden which existed on the land in list 'A' at the time of the suit was taken into consideration, the value of that property alone would be found to be more than Rs. 10,000-. The suit was therefore not cognizable by the Munsif.