DURJAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PLAINTIFFS who owned some land, applied to the Sub -Divisional Officer, offering to exchange their land for a piece of Government land. Sub -Divisional Officer, after observing the requisite formalities, allowed the application under section 167 of the M.P. Land Revenue Code, 1959. Defendants No. 2 to 9 who had some claim over the land or intended to put forward a claim over the land, challenged the order in appeal before the Additional Commissioner, who set aside the order and remanded the proceedings for fresh disposal by the Sub -Divisional Officer. Thereupon, plaintiffs filed the suit for declaration of their title (to the Government land) and for prohibitory injunction, restraining the defendants from interfering with their peaceful possession. Pending the suit, plaintiffs on one hand and defendants 2 to 9 on the other, entered into a compromise by which defendants 2 to 9 withdrew their claim for the land. They filed an application before the trial Court praying that the compromise may be recorded and the decree may be passed in terms of the compromise. The trial Court dismissed the application. Hence, this revision.

(2.) THE trial Court did not record a finding that the plaintiffs and defendants 2 to 9 did not enter into a compromise. It is open to plaintiffs and a few only of the defendants to settle the dispute and report the settlement to the Court subject to the provisions of Order XIII, rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The Court cannot decline to record the compromise, though it can decline to pass a decree in terms of a compromise in appropriate cases. The Court could not obviously have passed a decree in terms of the compromise in the presence of the first defendant, the State of Madhya Pradesh, and of defendants 10 to 12 since the land was originally Government land and by virtue of the appellate order, it ceased to belong to the plaintiffs. The lower Court may have been justified in declining to pass a decree, but the lower Court committed an error of jurisdiction in not recording the compromise, for what it is worth.

(3.) THE revision is accordingly allowed, but without costs.