MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE SAMRALA Vs. PUNJAB WAKF BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will dispose of Regular Second Appeals Nos. 1108, 1109, 1110, 1111, 1112 and 1113 of 1971, as common questions of law and fact are involved therein. The relevant facts have been taken from R.S.A. No. 1108 of 1971.

(2.) The Punjab Wakf Board, Plaintiff-respondent, filed these suits for possession of the agricultural land alleging that same are Wakf properties and after the Muslims had left Samrala on account of partition of the country in 1947, the properties vested in the Custodian. After passing of the Wakf Act in 1954 and its extension to Punjab Area in 1959, the properties vested in the plaintiff and as such it is entitled to recover possession thereof. All these suits were filed on January 1, 1969 claiming extension under the Public Wakf (Extension of Limitation) Act (Act No. 29 of 1959 amended from time to time) (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The suit was contested on behalf of the Municipal Committee, Samrala, and on the pleadings of the parties the trial Court framed the following issues :-

(3.) The suit was decreed by the trial Court as all the relevant issues were found in favour of the plaintiff. In appeal all the findings of the trial Court were affirmed by the learned Additional District Judge and as a result thereof the decree of the trial Court in favour of the plaintiff was maintained. Dissatisfied with the same, the defendants-appellants have come up in second appeal in this Court.