RAMAPPA VANAPPA AKALE Vs. LAXMAN MALYAPPA AKALE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal which has come to this Court from Kolhapur and it has been placed before a Pull Bench because the learned Chief Justice of the Kolhapur High Court had directed that it should be heard by a Full Bench on the ground that the question of limitation which it raised was of some importance. The question of limitation ariees in this way :

(2.) The property in suit is a piece of land attached to the office of the village sanadi and it originally belonged to the family of the plaintiff and the defendants. The sanadi holding this land was liable to render service as such sanadi in the village chavdi of Mardi. It would appear that some time in 1904 there was a partition in the family of the sanadis and the land now in suit fell to the share of the branch of defendant 1. Since then defendant 1 has been in possession of it. The plaintiff's father died on 9-11-1926. Thereafter a revenue inquiry was held as a result of which the name of the present plaintiff was entered as a Navavala on l 6-1935. On 1-12-1941, the present suit was filed by the plaintiff claiming possession of the property in suit. His case was that after his name was entered as a Navavala he obtained possession of the property and let it out to the defendants on oral tenancy in 1936-37. That is how he made his claim for the possession of the land. The defence was that the property had been assigned to the branch of the defendants in 1904 and as such they were lawfully in possession. Both the Courts held that this property could not have been validly partitioned in 1904 because a vat-hukum had been passed prohibiting the partition of such lands. On this view of the matter, the plaintiff's claim had been decreed in both the Courts below. When the defendants took their second appeal before the Kolhapur High Court, they were allowed to urge a point of limitation, and by an interim judgment delivered on 7-4-1948 the Kolhapur High Court sent back the case for the determination of the question of limitation. In this interlocutory judgment it was observed that the plea which was allowed to be raised had not been taken in the Courts below ; but the defendants were entitled to this indulgence in view of the fact that until 1944 the Kolhapur High Court had consistently held that limitation was inapplicable to inam Jands and it was only in 1944 that the Supreme Oourt of Kolhapue by its judgment overruled this longstanding view and held that the plea of limitation was applicable even to inam lands. The learned Judges tf the Kolhapur High Court were disposed to accede to the request of the defendants to permit the plea of limitation to be raised in second appeal because they thought that the defendants had been misled by the view which the High Court had been taking till then on this question. The issue sent down by this interlocutory judgment was :

(3.) Now, it is clear that Article 114 would bar the present suit if it is held that the plaintiff claims the present properly through his father. Column 3 of Article 144 refers to the adverse possession of the defendant against the plaintiff, and the word 'plaintiff' would obviously include his 'predeeessor-in-title. On the facts, which are admitted it is quite clear that the defendants have been in possession of this property since 1904 and they are in a position to claim adverse possession not only against the present plaintiff but even as against his deceased father. It is true that the period of limitation for adverse possession was thirty years in the State of Kolhapur until 1922. It was in 1922 that the Indian Limitation Act in thia behalf was made expressly applicable to Kolhapur. Three years of grace were, however, allowed to parties affected by the change of the period of limitation from thirty to twelve years, and since the plaintiff's father took no steps to assert his title within three years after 1929, it may be that even the title of the plaintiff's father was barred by adverse possession before he died in 1926. But whether that is so or not, there is no doubt whatever that the title of the plaintiff would be barred by adverse possession because the defendants have baen in uninterrupted possession since 1926 when the plaintiff's father died until 1941 when the present suit was filed. Mr. Adake who appears for the plaintiff does not dispute this position. His argument, however, is that there can be no question of adverse possession against the plaintiff because after the death of his father the property in suit reverted to the Kolhapur Government and his rights in reference to this property arose only after he was recognised as a Navavala. In other words, the contention is that sanadi property like the present is held by the holder only as a life estate; as scon as the holder dies the estate automatically reverts to the State and it remains with the State until the Slate decides who should be the next Navavala. If that is so, there can be no doubt that the possession of the defendants from 1926 to 1935 would be adverse not against the plaintiff but against the State of Kolhapur, and if the State recognised the plaintiff as the Navavala entitled to this property, his rights would arise as a result of the State's order and a plea of adverse possession against him cannos be sustained. This in turn is not disputed by Mr. Abhyankar who appears for the defendants. Thus the only point which we have to consider in this appeal is as to the nature of the sanadi property in suit.