AJIB CHANDRA MOHANTY Vs. MAHESWAR ROUTRA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Defendant No. 1's second appeal from the confirming decision of the lower appellate Court in a suit for declaration of title, and recovery of possession with respect to a residential house standing in an area of 58 decimals in Heragohiri Sahi of Puri town.

(2.) ORIGINALLY the suit land without the house constituted Amrutamanohe Lakhraji Niskar Baheli land belonging to Kausalya Das Math (Defendant No. 2). One Madan Mohan Patnaik took lease of the disputed land from the Math on 8 -6 -1916 for a period of twenty years and constructed a house thereon. On the death of Madan Mohan his son Laxminarayan sold the suit property to Narahari Mohanty on 12 -8 -1930. The later sold it to the Plaintiff on 3rd December, 1935. The Plaintiff then let out the suit house to Defendant No. 1 in 1948 who subsequently got his name mutated in landlord's sherista and also in Municipal records without the knowledge of the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff coming to know of these surreptitious acts of ownership on the part of Defendant No. 1 filed a house rent control case for his eviction from the suit house. The latter denied Plaintiff's title to the suit land in that proceeding and questioned the House -Rent Controller's jurisdiction to entertain the eviction proceeding. Accordingly, the House Rent Controller referred the Plaintiff to civil Court for establishment of his title. The present suit was filed in the aforesaid circumstances.

(3.) THE trial Court held that the Plaintiff has subsisting title and he inducted Defendant No. 1 as a monthly tenant into the suit house and Defendant No. 1 continued to possess the house in that capacity till his tenancy was determined by the Plaintiff's notice dated 3 -9 -1965. The notice to quit is valid and legal. He also found that the suit is in time and the civil Court has got jurisdiction to entertain the suit.