CHANDER AND ORS Vs. HARI SINGH AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellants-Plaintiffs, Chander and others, filed suit for declaration to the effect that they are the owners in possession of 15 kanals 17 marlas of land situated in village Bajitpur Saboli, Tehsil and District Sonepat . Their suit was dismissed by Civil Judge(Junior Division)Sonepat, vide judgment and decree dated 7.4.2009. They preferred first appeal against that judgment and decree, which was dismissed by Additional District Judge, Sonepat, vide judgment and decree dated 23.4.2009. Aggrieved by those judgments and decrees, they preferred this second appeal.

(2.) The suit was filed by the Plaintiffs in the representative capacity under Order 1 Rule 8 Code of Code of Civil Procedure on the ground that there are 36 proprietors of the land and it is not possible to impaled all of them. They pleaded in their plaint that they and their predecessors-in-interest had been cultivating the land in dispute much before the year 1879-80 from generation to generation, as tenants without payment of any rent to the recorded land owners. They had been paying the land revenue and the cases under the persons recorded as owners.

(3.) The suit was contested by the Defendants. In their written statement they denied the contentions of the Plaintiffs. They pleaded that the Plaintiffs have come out with a false and frivolous suit and have not come to the Court with clean hands. Previously, they filed Civil Suit No. 158 of 1993 against Udey Singh and others in the Court at Sonepat, which was dismissed as withdrawn on 26.9.1996 without getting any permission to file a fresh suit on the same cause of action. On 18.10.1996, they filed Civil Suit No. 170/1996 against general public and others, which was also dismissed as withdrawn on 4.2.2003 without getting permission to file fresh suit on the same cause of action. Therefore, this suit is barred by principles of res judicator and under Order 23 Rule 1(4) CPC.